INTERVIEW: Richard H. Blake heads to the ‘Bronx’ for new Broadway ‘Tale’

A Bronx Tale, based on the life of actor Chazz Palminteri, has seen many incarnations over the years. The story of a young Italian man caught between a life of crime and a life with his family has been told off-Broadway, on Broadway, on tour and on movie screens. Now the tale has made its way back to Midtown Manhattan courtesy of a new musical co-directed by Jerry Zaks and Robert De Niro, who directed and starred in the film version. The show was written by Palminteri, whose one-man show serves as the source material, and features songs by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater. Add in the choreography of Sergio Trujillo and the producers of Jersey Boys, and A Bronx Tale has theatrical and cinematic royalty among its creative team.

In the musical, which is currently playing at the Longacre Theatre, Nick Cordero plays Sonny, a local leader in the mafia, who tries to influence Bobby Conte Thornton’s impressionable Calogero character. If Sonny is the bad influence in Calogero’s life, his morality and ethics come from his father, Lorenzo, played by Jersey Boys alumnus Richard H. Blake.

The push and pull between these two figures in the young man’s life is what creates the narrative in the 1960s-set musical, and amidst the struggles, Calogero finds love with Jane (Ariana DeBose), an African-American woman from the neighborhood. Their relationship causes controversy, and they need to figure out whether to keep their feelings private or go public and face the scrutiny of the discriminating times they live in.

A lot of ground is covered in little more than two hours.

“I am having a great time,” Blake said recently in a phone interview. “It’s a wonderful role to play. It’s Chazz Palminteri’s father, so I get to bring to life his dad every night. And that’s an honor that was bestowed upon me because I think that it’s obviously a pretty sacred role to him. He loved his father very much, so, yeah, I feel very fortunate to be working on this show right now with these people and getting to play a really great man.”

To prepare for the role, Blake spent a lot of time discussing Lorenzo with Palminteri. The actor wanted to know what kind of man he was and what type of influence he had on Palminteri. Blake learned — and subsequently incorporated into his characterization — that Lorenzo was a bus driver who liked to coach boxing. He was a presence in their Bronx neighborhood and an influence in the home. Blake felt privileged to have access to Palminteri’s stories and memories, which were filtered into his portrayal on the Longacre stage.

Blake’s journey to the Bronx actually began in Jersey.

“I was doing Jersey Boys, playing Tommy DeVito, when the audition for this came about,” he said. “It’s the same producers, and they asked me to come in and audition for it. Of course, I was thrilled with that, and so I came in. … My first audition was just with Jerry Zaks and Ron Melrose, the musical supervisor, and we just sang and read some of the scenes. And he really was so warm and then so nice. It made me feel comfortable, which was really nice, because the next audition was [a] room filled with him, and Robert DeNiro, and Chazz Palmenteri, and Alan Menken and Tommy Mottola, and the list goes on. And it was quite an intimidating room, so it was nice to have an initial meeting where I kind of got to feel a little bit more comfortable.”

It must have been a true existential moment in that audition room. Blake was performing as Lorenzo in front of Lorenzo’s actual son (Palminteri) and the man who played Lorenzo in the movie version (De Niro).

“To know that you’re auditioning for somebody who is a living legend who played this part and directed this movie, it’s kind of like, all right, you don’t want to mess this one up,” he said. “You hope that he doesn’t go, ‘Well, what is he doing? What’s he doing with that role that I laid the groundwork for? Why is he messing it up?'”

The music in the show, which features several special songs for the Lorenzo character, is right in Blake’s vocal wheelhouse. “Look to Your Heart” is a sweet, touching song that introduces Lorenzo to the audience, and then the energy is ramped up with “Give Back the Money.” The Act-I finale, “These Streets,” is a rock song akin to the Bruce Springsteen songbook. “Sure, it’s definitely hard on the voice when you’re singing eight shows a week, but the music itself, I think, is right in my range,” Blake said. “So that helps.”

During the pre-Broadway phase, which included an engagement at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse, Blake worked with Menken and the creative team on the original songs. Melrose, the music supervisor, would work out the tunes with the cast, and then Menken would arrive for rehearsals and offer his input on what needed to be tinkered with and focused on. Blake called the fine-tuning of the music a process in which some songs were straightforward, while others needed tailoring to the performers in the role.

“There are other songs that stylistically might need a little more fine-tuning and fine-tuning to the person singing it, so [Menken] comes in and will tweak it,” Blake said. “Even ‘Look to Your Heart,’ my first song, started out kind of in one vibe, and then he came back and … tinkered with it.”

Blake has played in some of the most recognizable musicals on Broadway in recent years. His resume reads like a history book of theatrical successes over the last decade. Besides Jersey Boys, there’s Wicked, Legally Blonde, The Wedding Singer, Hairspray, Aida, Saturday Night Fever, Rent, Matilda and The Sound of Music, among others. Originating a role on the Great White Way, like Blake is dong in A Bronx Tale, is a special bullet point on his CV.

“It’s always exciting and such a pleasure to originate a role on Broadway,” he said. “I’m not going to complain about stepping into replacement roles in shows. That’s been huge for me. … I’ve done a lot of the contemporary jukebox musicals, so people have heard the songs that I’ve sung, just on the radio sung by somebody else. So getting to sing all the original music, it’s always exciting; it’s always fun. When we do a cast album, we will be immortalized as the first people to sing these songs. Yeah, of course, it’s very exciting.”

With A Bronx Tale, there’s the added pleasure of playing a character who by all accounts is a good, decent man. “Well, the message that I get to sort of put out there in this show: The saddest thing in life is wasted talent. Choose love over fear,” he said. “These are important messages, I think, for everyone in this world right now. And as a father myself — I have a 5-year-old son — I love getting to play a part that is like the man I would like to be, so I get to draw from my own life when I get to play this part because I want to raise my son the way Lorenzo raised Chazz.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

A Bronx Tale: The New Musical is currently playing Broadway’s Longacre Theatre at 220 W. 48th St. in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets. Click here for Hollywood Soapbox’s previous interview with Richard H. Blake.