EDGE Interview: Tituss Burgess Goes Back to Music with New Touring Show

EDGE: Do you have a personal connection to any of the songs you'll be singing?

Tituss Burgess: Yes, and I purposely chose a few songs that I liked sonically, but I am still working on finding my way into them. Most of the choices were, "Oh, this feels good." Frivolity is fine. Meryl Streep said something brilliant, I thought. She said, "When you read a script," in this case, I'll use music, "You have to find something. You shouldn't find something in it from the neck up, meaning you shouldn't be cerebral about it. It needs to be from the neck down. It needs some part of you that is inside the thing, and your job is to spend the rest of your time convincing others that you are who you are." It was such a wonderful explanation of acting, and I believe it is true of singing. Please don't quote me on the exact quote.

EDGE: What do you like about performing in these more intimate venues?

Tituss Burgess: I've never been on tour. I'm performing at five city wineries, then I go to London for a two-week residency, and then I return home and do two more city wineries. Last year, when I performed in "Moulin Rouge" on Broadway after a 14-year absence from the stage, I was a nervous wreck. I had forgotten the immediacy and the urgency that live theater mandates and the audience becoming the other character in the show. After that run ended, I thought I had to do it again. The audience is the listener and the therapist. You sit there and let me verbally go on and on about how I feel and think. In your silence or your applause, you guide me toward the truth. While you cannot lie in intimate settings, you might be able to fake your way through it up close and personally, but there's not much protecting you. I finally feel ready to walk out as a live nerve and expose many things about my life. Now, in my forties, I'm prepared to talk about it all. I don't know how to walk in anything other than my truth, and I'm ready to sing.

EDGE: Is there a style of music or a performer that you listen to that might surprise your fans?

Tituss Burgess: I'll say this: I am genuinely a multi-genre listener. The set list spans; it goes in every direction at once, but it goes seamlessly. It'll make sense. I don't let up. I don't allow you to catch a breath in how I present it. Should I tell you this? No, I'm going to anyway. I open with a song you actually might not even be able to figure out until the chorus. There are many genres that you wouldn't think sit inside me. One would think I would be attracted to robust and flashy songs, but I'm just not that guy. Also, I'm not the queen that many people think I am, and there's nothing wrong with that; I play a bunch of them on TV. This show is an invitation to Tituss, and I hope people walk away pleasantly surprised.

EDGE: Will we see your musical adaptation of "The Preacher's Wife" heading to Broadway anytime soon?

Tituss Burgess: It has not been formally announced, but we are planning a commercial run. I get flutters just thinking about it. I have never experienced God in the way that I was able to experience watching and writing "The Preacher's Wife." The show is not inherently about church. It just centers around the wife of a pastor who is in the middle of an identity crisis. While I was writing it, I was having an extraordinary identity crisis. It's funny; when I was in the audience during previews, I would have to get up and leave because I was experiencing the hardship and traumas all over again that I was walking and writing myself through. I still feel way too close to it, but when I heard the cheers and saw the audience's tears, I knew what I had set out to do was working. This show is probably the greatest expression of Tituss that I have been able to do to date. I want people to see it desperately because we can all see ourselves in Julia Biggs, the Preacher's wife.

EDGE: Can you tell us anything about your role in Netflix's upcoming film, "Spellbound?"

Tituss Burgess: I play Sunny the Oracle of the Sun opposite Nathan Lane. I'm the yang to his yin, and it's lovely. Alan Menken has written a glorious score along with Glenn Slater, whom I worked with during my run in "The Little Mermaid." It was nice to be reunited with them; they are musical geniuses. It's a lovely story about family, what resolved trauma can do to children, and what legacy you will leave. As Stephen Sondheim once said, children will listen. In the case of this film, a child will lead them. As the Christian Bible states, "A little child shall lead them." While this story has nothing to do with the Bible, it is very much a child leading adults, and it's lovely.

EDGE: What lessons have you learned from your career that apply to our readers?

Tituss Burgess: We have nothing to prove, only to share. Our offering doesn't need to be perfect or even refined. It just has to be sincere, and that is the only way we will explain or demonstrate to non-allies who we are, what we can be, and how we are not entirely dissimilar to them.

EDGE: Is there anything that you would like to promote?

Tituss Burgess: I will host a new show on Food Network called "Last Bite Hotel." It premieres on Tuesday, September 24th. I believe it is the wackiest thing the Food Network has done to date. It is a fearsome competition. I play this mad hotel manager who is a little off-kilter, and you aren't sure what his motives are or what is going on. It's very creepy and entertaining.

Tituss Burgess will perform at City Winery Boston on Wednesday, September 18th. Tickets can be purchased at https://citywinery.com/boston.