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SAHR NGAUJAH was a stranger to Broadway when he and “Fela!” arrived at the Eugene O’Neill Theater in October. Seven months later, with a Tony Award nomination for best actor in a musical now under his belt, he seems fully immersed in that milieu but still not quite of it, almost like a Times Square tourist trying to absorb everything going on around him while maintaining a safe distance.

Given the biographical part in which Mr. Ngaujah (pronounced en-GOW-jah) has been cast, that seems appropriate. The Nigerian bandleader Fela Anikulapo Kuti was the creator of the cosmopolitan musical style known as Afrobeat but deliberately cultivated an outsider’s image and became a perpetual thorn in the side of the military rulers of Africa’s most populous country, a role he played until his death in 1997.

“To be on Broadway now, which is the last thing I thought I would ever do, has been life-changing in so many ways,” Mr. Ngaujah, 33, said in an interview after a recent Saturday matinee performance.

“It has required learning how things work here, even on a very simple level, like the rituals that take place in a Broadway setting. They don’t hold the same weight for me as for some of my colleagues. But it’s not something that I shun or disdain or begrudge; it’s more just learning the culture.”

As an example of Broadway customs that were new to him, Mr. Ngaujah cited the annual Easter bonnet competition (to raise money for charity) and the superstition that to assure success, a cast member from every musical with a chorus must wear a “gypsy robe” on opening night. But coming from the world of European experimental theater, he also acknowledged that performing in “Fela!” had forced him to recalibrate some of his own assumptions about the nature and function of his art. - New York Times, May 2010
SAHR NGAUJAH was a stranger to Broadway when he and “Fela!” arrived at the Eugene O’Neill Theater in October. Seven months later, with a Tony Award nomination for best actor in a musical now under his belt, he seems fully immersed in that milieu but still not quite of it, almost like a Times Square tourist trying to absorb everything going on around him while maintaining a safe distance.

Given the biographical part in which Mr. Ngaujah (pronounced en-GOW-jah) has been cast, that seems appropriate. The Nigerian bandleader Fela Anikulapo Kuti was the creator of the cosmopolitan musical style known as Afrobeat but deliberately cultivated an outsider’s image and became a perpetual thorn in the side of the military rulers of Africa’s most populous country, a role he played until his death in 1997.

“To be on Broadway now, which is the last thing I thought I would ever do, has been life-changing in so many ways,” Mr. Ngaujah, 33, said in an interview after a recent Saturday matinee performance.

“It has required learning how things work here, even on a very simple level, like the rituals that take place in a Broadway setting. They don’t hold the same weight for me as for some of my colleagues. But it’s not something that I shun or disdain or begrudge; it’s more just learning the culture.”

As an example of Broadway customs that were new to him, Mr. Ngaujah cited the annual Easter bonnet competition (to raise money for charity) and the superstition that to assure success, a cast member from every musical with a chorus must wear a “gypsy robe” on opening night. But coming from the world of European experimental theater, he also acknowledged that performing in “Fela!” had forced him to recalibrate some of his own assumptions about the nature and function of his art. - New York Times, May 2010
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Brick & Mortar Music Hall 10 Upcoming Events
1710 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103

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