Simon Green was in Manchester happily playing Whizzer in March of the Falsettos (by William Finn), which was scheduled to move to The West End. The world was his oyster. Cameron Mackintosh, with whom Simon had worked before, called him down to audition for the first London production of Stephen Sondheim’s eventually iconic Follies. He was asked, as is custom, to bring an up-tempo and a ballad. For ten years, he’d auditioned with Soon It’s Gonna Rain from The Fantastiks (by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt) and gotten lots of work. He didn’t have an up-tempo song. Assuming he wasn’t going to be able to do Follies anyway, he did nothing about acquiring one. Still, he decided to audition.
“That was great; have you got an up-tempo number?” asked Sondheim when Simon had finished `Rain yet again. “To which I replied—thank God Stephen and I are good friends now—`No, I don’t have one, but I could sing that faster.’”
As it turned out, towards the end of his West End run, Simon was again invited to audition luckily not, this time, for the author. He was asked to perform You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow, which is a duet. Mackintosh sang young Phyllis’ lines. “Cameron’s great. He’s in love with the theater.” They had a wonderful time. Simon got the part. He’s that kind of lucky; talented; liked.
At eight years old, on a visit to Stratford from Baddesley Clinton, his relatively uncultured, middle class parents took young Simon to see Dorothy Tutin in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. He decided then and there to be an actor. One wonders what would’ve occurred if they’d gone to see Steve Reeves play Hercules at a neighboring cinema. “I never really made a choice to do it—didn’t go, shall I be a milkman—it chose me.” Quietly resolved and extremely self-contained, he felt no need to participate in amateur productions.
Simon’s father was a frustrated entertainer. At the end of the war, the young twenty-four year old soldier returned to Birmingham and was forced into business to make a living. He played trumpet, piano, sang and tap danced (Simon learned from his dad)…at parties. A lengthy tenure with The Lapworth Church Choir taught Simon what a brief flirtation with piano lessons did not: to read music. Despite these influences, musical theater and especially cabaret were far from his aspirations.
When he was sixteen, Simon was accepted in a ground-breaking day program at Stratford on Avon and began to commute by bus. The curriculum had been devised by Gordo Vallins, the first to teach the drama education that became A-Level Theater Studies, now ubiquitous in England. It was not vocational, but rather a course designed for the development of the human spirit. “You came out a bigger person than you were when you went in.” He came out a smaller person. Though an apparently sunny child, Simon had been “…a great big fat Billy Bunter.” Ridding himself of whatever he felt he’d needed to hide or protect, he slimmed down to the lithe figure he now presents. He inhabited his skin. He was happy.
An unsuccessful attempt to get into The London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art, elicited an invitation from Vallins to stay in Stratford another year. The next year he got into LAMDA, attending every production at the Royal Shakespeare Theater in Stratford when 35p (50 cents!) was the price of standing room. Those were the days.
In his third year at school, Simon was seen by a casting director and auditioned for the Birmingham-accented, tap-dancing lead in a television series. Six weeks before he left LAMDA, he had an agent and a job. The next year and a half was spent filming J. B. Priestley’s novel, The Good Companions. Learning to work in front of a camera was invaluable; the cast of veteran stage actors couldn’t be better examples. “It was handed to me like a Christmas Pudding.”
There followed repertory theater, more television, Bristol Old Vic, Theatre Royal. Simon performed in Restoration, Greek Theater, Shakespeare, and musicals-including the lead in the 30th anniversary of The Boy Friend (by Sandy Wilson). “I even played a dame in pantomime, which is right up my alley.”
In 1985, Donald Smith, Director of The Mabel Mercer Foundation, invited Simon to New York to see The Follies concert at Lincoln Center. He had been introduced to Donald in London by Peter Tear, now Director of the 59E59 Street Theaters in New York. (At this point Simon hadn’t smart-mouthed Sondheim; that would come two years later). He was asked to escort a blind date who turned out to be Julie Wilson! They sat second row center and attended a glittering after-party where Simon was introduced to Barbara Cook, Harold Prince, and Elaine Stritch. The next evening Donald took him to a private gathering where Julie Wilson tried out her new act…before friends. “On the plane home, I looked out of the window and thought that’s what I want to do.” (Cabaret). This was Simon’s first trip to Manhattan, his first intimate exposure to cabaret performers!
Gradually, he became established in the world of musical theater, both as a performer and then a director. He also began to immerse himself in the art of cabaret. Steve Ross, Andrea Marcovicci, and Julie Wilson became his “guides.” Simon watched, listened and absorbed. Around 1996, he decided the time was right. Self-effacing about his (lovely) voice and unwilling to “just stand and sing the big number from Les Miz,” he approached the genre as an actor, not a singer. The search began for a musical director. (Les Miserables by Alain Boubil, Claude-Michel Schonberg, & Herbert Kretzmer)
In the meantime, it was back to The West End, this time as Lumiere in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (by Alan Menken, Howard Ashman, and Tim Rice). Peter Tear recalls the evening his impression of Simon was solidified: At the end of the song Be Our Guest, there’s a suspended pause before Lumiere sings…Be…our…Before he could finish the phrase, a little girl in the front row shouted out “be our guest!” Simon turned. Never breaking character, in full French accent, he asked the excited child “how did you know that!?” The audience roared. As the cast took over, she continued to sing along. Because of her location and the pitch of her voice, the contribution was more than apparent. During another production, the little girl might’ve been shushed or ignored. Instead, Simon used his solo to fetch her onto the stage with the cast. “It was memorable,” Tear recalls, “delightful.”
Shortly thereafter, working again in Manchester, Simon met “this twenty-two year old, opinionated, pesky, passionate, driven, funny, talented young chap (and musical director) called David Shrubsole.” As is clear by Simon’s description, they got on well. David joined Simon for several appearances at which they performed standards, but the burgeoning team was against “skating by on yet another evening of American Songbook.” It was time to create an act. “I was coming up to forty, a place of maturity and experience—I had something to say.” Shrubsole went through dozens and dozens of writer’s compendiums.
They opened at Pizza on the Park in Knightsbridge, the ultimate cabaret venue in London —unfortunately soon to be demolished. (To the barricades!) It was “an eclectic mix.” Simon and David “mailing-listed” everyone they knew, managing to sell out. Michael Grandage, who recently directed the Tony-winning Red, commented to Simon “that was like your Hamlet.”
Working with David Shrubsole means “I get to exercise ever muscle I need to exercise; I’m schooled, coached, pushed, cajoled, nudged, and very occasionally stroked. It’s fantastic.” David, who composes, conducts, writes and arranges, chooses not to do cabaret with anyone else. Their mutual admiration and regard enhances every show. “One isn’t in cabaret for money,” Simon reflects, “one simply doesn’t want to lose any money. That’s silly.”
In 1999, Donald Smith invited the duo to participate in The Noel Coward Centennial at Carnegie Hall. They were doing quite a bit of Coward “he’s sort of my style” (evidenced by the CD, A Changing World). The Coward Estate and Foundation have been very supportive. In 2008, Peter Tear saw their show, Clearly Coward in London and enthusiastically invited Simon and David to play 59E59 Street Theaters at Christmas. The following year, they returned to present Traveling Light (also available on CD) which won a New York Drama Desk nomination in 2010. It was up against Sondheim on Sondheim, in very good company. (CDs on www.cdbaby.com).
Last year Simon directed Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband in Frankfort “in English I hasten to add.” He’s been invited back. Directing has become a passion. “It’s a lonely job, but I love the creativity. It’s completely your own, whereas as an actor…Cabaret is the same.”
Simon Green is a thespian, an unfortunately anachronistic term. There isn’t much he hasn’t done or can’t do in terms of performance. His path has been sure from its inception. Though a charming and talented man who has certainly learned his craft, one can’t help but wonder whether a fairy godmother has been in attendance. I, for one, rather favor the theory.
“Funny old world, eh?” Simon
Simon Green and David Shrubsole will make an appearance among other cabaret luminaries in
“If Love Were All,” The Timeless Words and Music of Noel Coward Friday October 8
during The splendid 21st New York Cabaret Convention at Rose Hall.
They will take the stage alone for an evening of truly classy entertainment Monday, October 11.
Clearly Coward, the words, music and wisdom of Noel Coward
The Metropolitan Room
34 West 26 street 212-206-0440
BOOK! GO! Take friends and loved ones. These men should be holding court at The Carlyle or Feinstein’s. Treat yourself.
*Noel Coward
