Loretta Ables Sayre On Broadway

      It's chilly in the PBS Hawaii studios in Manoa, because our air conditioning is geared to the care of our television equipment.

      So I'm used to seeing Loretta Ables Sayre dressed warmly. She's been in our building countless times, recording announcements as "the voice of PBS Hawaii."

       But I 've never seen Loretta in a full winter coat before.  She looks great, bundled up against 25-degree weather, ducking into a restaurant to meet me on West 64th Street in New York City.

       She's glad to see someone from home and she's glad to take a break in a grueling day of rehearsals for the first Broadway staging of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific" since 1949.

        "I'm so tired," she smiles. "They built this sand dune on stage and I have to run up and over it again and again during rehearsals.  I just might drop to 80 pounds!"

         Rehearsals have been running 10 or more hours a day, six days a week. Her role as "Bloody Mary" requires her to do a good bit of yelling, and there's a lot of wear and tear as she delivers her lines.

        "Mondays are my days off. I take a voice lesson, get a massage, and then just rest my voice and body," she says.

        It's tough, but she's loving it, this plum entree to Broadway, at one of the best venues for musical productions in the world, Lincoln Center Theatre.

        "I still can't believe I'm here," Loretta says.

         "It was serendipity," is how Diamond Head Theatre's John Rampage puts it. "Loretta wasn't looking for a Broadway role, but Broadway found her."

         The East Coast production folks had come to Hawaii looking for talent, wanting authenticity in the "South Pacific" role. Loretta is to give depth to a character typically portrayed, once over lightly, as a wacky wicked wahine.

          Loretta's got depth, all right. We love her at PBS Hawaii for her mischievous sense of humor, her smarts, her talent, her good nature.

         What's her new life like outside the theatre? She's been given the use of  a lovely apartment overlooking Central Park. It's just around the corner from the theatre.

         There's buzz in theatre circles, about the Hawaii import with the diva talent--and without the diva temperament. There's a lot of topnotch talent in the cast. The first run of tickets has sold fast.

       Loretta has no idea how long she'll be away from her Mililani home, in the lights of Broadway.

        "David's going to visit me every month," she says. 

         "My cute haole husband! He always thought I had Broadway in me; he's always had so much belief in me."

         She has plenty of other believers in Hawaii who also feel she's got what it takes. 

         On a night that would end in snowfall, I walk her back to rehearsal at Lincoln Center Theatre. Back to her sand dune and serendipitous stardom.

Comments

[Steve C]

Alway an avid fan of South Pacific, I caught a clip NBC featuring Loretta Ables Sayre in the Bloody Mary role on Broadway and was completely blown away! What a success story for her! And all the more impressive knowing that she's a member of the "PBS family.

Steve, San Jose