High Note: Randy Graff at the Kennedy Center
Having made her Kennedy Center debut in 1986 with Les Miz, Randy Graff returns with a one-woman cabaret
“The Kennedy Center is my favorite place to work in the U.S.,” crows Randy Graff. “Two of the most meaningful shows in my professional life happened there and the Opera House is where it all began for me as a musical theater actor.” The year was 1986, with the pre-Broadway American premiere of Les Miserables. And Graff played the pivotal role of Fantine, whose “I Dreamed a Dream” is one of the musical’s biggest, most heartbreaking, showstoppers. The second moment came sixteen years later, in 2002, with A Little Night Music, the closing production of the Sondheim Celebration festival, in which Graff played Charlotte.
Graff’s one-woman cabaret, Made in Brooklyn, will include a nod to her KenCen roots. “I am singing ‘I Dreamed a Dream,'” she notes, in honor of Les Miz. But the October 30 appearance — her fifth in the venue — is mainly a tribute to the place where she spent her childhood.
“It’s the story of me growing up in Brooklyn, singing on street corners and eventually getting to Broadway,” she says. “Every song I sing was either written or made famous by a Brooklynite — foremost Barbra Streisand, but so many composers, lyricists and movie stars.”
Graff has appeared in countless hits on the Great White Way, including 1989’s City of Angels, for which she won a Tony, 1992’s Falsettos and revivals of A Class Act and Fiddler on the Roof. Through it all, she’s noticed her “very large gay fanbase” is among the most engaged.
“They’re the most accepting — perhaps that comes from living their own self-acceptance,” she says. “No matter what I do — I could fall on my face, I could crack on a high note, whatever I do, they’re just with me for the ride. I just so appreciate it.”
Randy Graff performs as part of the Barbara Cook Spotlight series on Friday, Oct. 30, at 7 p.m., at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. Tickets are $50. Call 202-467-4600 or visit kennedy-center.org.
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