The musical theater legend on her return to Pittsburgh, ‘West Side Story’ then and now, and more
By SHARON EBERSON
It’s not just superheroes who have origin stories. Iconic characters such as Anita in West Side Story, Rosie in Bye Bye Birdie, and Velma Kelly in Chicago might be best known for the blasts they made on the big screen.
But they all began on stage, with one woman.
“I feel that the original is the original,” says Chita Rivera, the 89-year-old speaking by phone as she readies for her long-delayed, much-anticipated Trust Cabaret shows on May 23 and 24. Both shows are sold out.
This is about the time when I have to pause for a fangirl moment. That’s Chita Rivera on the other end of my landline, reacting when I say that every Anita on stage and screen dances in her footsteps. Now back to the legendary performer …
Those after-Chita Anitas, Rosies, and Velmas, “They bring their own interpretation, and they do whatever the choreographer and director tell them to do in new versions,” she continues. “You can put aside the original of anything, and then you start from scratch. But I think,” she pauses. “The original is the original.”
That’s as close to even a humble brag as Ms. Rivera gets.
In an award-winning, record-breaking career that spans seven decades of Broadway firsts and unparalleled performances, Ms. Rivera has worked steadily on stage, from Broadway to cabaret spaces far and wide.
During her cabaret show here, she will deliver songs from some of her 10 Tony-nominated roles. , accompanied by a trio of musicians and special guest George Dvorsky, a musical theater mainstay and Greensburg native,
Her three Tony Awards include two as best actress in a musical (The Rink; Kiss of the Spider Woman) and a Lifetime Achievement Award.
“One of the reigning queens of Broadway,” as Post-Gazette critic Christopher Rawson called her in 2001, also starred in Pittsburgh CLO’s world premiere of Casper The Musical that year, playing villain Magdalena Monteverde.
From that experience, “I have many fond memories of Pittsburgh,” Ms. Rivera said. “I had my little white dog with me that was named after that show, and the cast was absolutely superb. The kids were adorable in that show. And it was very disappointing when it didn’t go to Broadway.”
When it is suggested that perhaps people were not ready for a family-oriented show from someone who has delivered so many memorable performances in more adult fare, she was quick to say, “I hope not – I’m going to continue to think not. That was an absolutely adorable show. There were things that were wrong, I know, but it was still disappointing” that it didn’t make it to New York.
Chita Rivera did not hold back in our wide-ranging interview, starting with the most recent Oscar-nominated movie version of West Side Story.
She was not asked to play a role in the Steven Spielberg film, which includes Rita Moreno, who played Anita in the 1961 movie. Ms. Rivera told Variety that she auditioned for the original movie version while in Bye Bye Birdie during tryouts in Philadelphia.
“I asked if the movie could be delayed a bit, and they couldn’t, but things turned out the way they were supposed to be,” she said and added, “Thank God Birdie was a hit.”
Janet Leigh played Rosie in the movie version of Bye Bye Birdie. For the 2021 film version of West Side Story, she was at least invited to the set.
“I saw Steven and a few of the kids, and that was that,” Ms. Rivera says. “I don’t make a big thing out of things. It was a nice day, and they were doing one of the [scenes] with Anita [Oscar winner Ariana DeBose] and Maria [Rachel Zegler]. I had wanted to see the entire company, but it wasn’t the day for it.”
She still hadn’t seen the new film when we spoke in mid-April.
“I just haven’t had time,” she says. “I will eventually see it. I’m not a moviegoer anyhow. But, curiosity, I will see it eventually.”
Ms. Rivera owes one of her screen moments to a fellow from Pittsburgh.
She counts Rob Marshall, the Tony- and Oscar-nominated director-choreographer who grew up in the ‘Burgh, among her friends in the biz. They first worked together on Broadway in 1984, when she starred in The Rink, opposite Liza Minnelli; he was dance captain and an understudy. He also did additional choreography for 1995’s Kiss of the Spider Woman.
“It’s a wonderful honor to be a friend of his,” Ms. Rivera said of Marshall, “and a friend when he was in the chorus. I’ve seen him really climb to the status he is now, and it’s just exciting, just wonderful.”
Marshall cast her as Nickie (the first inmate you see Renee Zellweger‘s Roxie Hart talk to in jail), in the Oscar-winning movie version of Chicago – in an homage to Ms. Riviera as the originator of the role of Velma Kelly, opposite Gwen Verdon as Roxie Hart.
That film role was followed by a more recent one, in the all-star diner scene in Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s Oscar-nominated movie musical tick … tick, BOOM!
Miranda was inspired when he saw Ms. Rivera onscreen in Chicago, he told Collider.com. “I was at the theater at midnight on Friday when [the movie] Chicago came out. I remember the screams when Chita Rivera showed up in the prison for just, like, a second. When we were talking about the sequence, I was like, ‘I want 20 Chita Riveras in prison in Chicago. ‘ That was the goal.”
“It was a great honor to be called by him and be involved in that theatrical endeavor,” Ms. Rivera said.
Because of COVID protocols, most of the stars did their parts on separate days, and their snippets were spliced together.
“That was really a coup for Lin, and it was just an example of his cleverness and his genius, really. He made it work,” Ms. Rivera says.
“Genius” is not a word to be trifled with, but the theatrical superstar – also not a word to be used lightly, but appropriate in the case of Ms. Rivera – has worked with many: Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and Jerome Robbins on West Side Story, Bob Fosse on Chicago and, on many more occasions, the team of songwriters John Kander and Fred Ebb, with librettist Terence McNally.
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Chita Rivera On…
Did you ever make a suggestion to Stephen Sondheim about the lyrics in West Side Story?
Rivera: No. Never. I came from that time when you did as you were told. And fortunately, everybody you worked with were brilliant people, and you were busy creating your own role. And besides, he wasn’t really ‘Stephen Sondheim’ then. He was a piano player … Who wrote lyrics. … Yes, of course. Those lyrics. I knew exactly what it meant then. It’s just gone on to be in the consciousness of the spectator. It may mean more in that way. But it’s exactly the same as it was originally.
To what do you owe your great collaboration with Kander and Ebb?
Rivera: They just know me. They put words in my mouth that they know I understand and the right words. And they also write with passion, and they are very dramatic at times, and then other times so humorous, so their scope is a wide scope, and it’s a joy to do. And Terence McNally is another one. He was an extraordinary man.
You hear stories about how tough Jerome Robbins could be …
Rivera: As far as I’m concerned, they are not true. To be a choreographer, to make a dancer do things … dancers do things that they automatically would not do. And then you have someone insisting on you doing them. And you end up being a much better dancer for it. But you need to be pushed. Well, what goes on in rehearsals is private anyhow, and it’s for the better of the play. I called him ‘Big Daddy,’ and he was always very respectful and treated me like everyone else, except one – there was one. He was on Mickey Calin [aka Michael Callan, who played Riff] a bit, but he made him much better.
West Side Story composer Leonard Bernstein was a hero of mine, going back to the Young People’s Concerts. You had the opportunity to …
Rivera: … Sit next to him! Just to listen to him talk, and for him to be in front of you conducting you … what you wouldn’t give for that! You’d give your life for that person just to please him. And to learn from him, from them, is an extraordinary thing.
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With all of her success and a few disappointments, too, Chita Rivera says she has no regrets about parts that she didn’t get to play on stage or screen.
“I’ve been so lucky; there really isn’t anything that I have seen that I said, ‘I wish I had done that.’ I’ve been asked that question so many times, and I know it’s boring to hear a no. But the answer is no, no regrets.”
What has been hard is not working. Even into her 80s, Ms. Rivera has remained on the go as a cabaret performer.
“It’s been very difficult as it has been for everyone. It’s been very hard doing things virtually. But you have to get up and get going. You take more voice lessons, you take more PT, and you put the mask on. And you try to stay away from the food,” she says with a laugh.
In 1995, when she toured in Kiss of the Spider Woman, Ms. Rivera was 62, a Washington Post reporter asked about still high-kicking at her age.
Back then, she said, “Sure, it blows me away that I’m this age. But I’ll tell you the only thing that really upsets me. I sometimes feel I’m being judged now in light of my age. I hope that’s not true. I don’t want people to say, ‘Isn’t it amazing she’s doing all that in her ’60s!’ I want them to look at the work and say, ‘Isn’t it good!’ But the age does seem to come up all the time.”
Now, at 89, back on the road after too long away from the stage, the one and only original Chita Rivera has seven decades of songs to choose from and bring to the Greer Cabaret stage.
“There’s so much because I have been around for such a long time,” she says. “And yes, my age? It still blows me away.”
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