Spamalot Comes to Wharton Center
December 4-9

Nathan Harris

I had the chance last week to talk to Christopher Sutton, a cast member with Spamalot, at the Wharton Center the beginning of December. Christopher is an MSU grad and is excited to perform at the Wharton for the first time since he was a student.

Nathan Harris: I’m so glad to be able to sit down, or at least speak with someone who actually graduated from here. Was it through the theater program, or did you major in something entirely different.

Christopher Sutton: Actually, I was the last one to graduate with a BFA in Musical Theater. They don’t do that anymore. So they were calling me The Last Buffalo. It was a great program when they had it. I mean, they still have, of course, the Bachelor of Arts in Theater. Back then—I graduated in ’93—it was basically one of us per year. It was really cool, because you had a lot of your classes with Masters students and all that, you know. But, they don’t have the program anymore, in terms of the BFA in Musical Theater, but that’s what I went to school for, then I graduated in 93, and I’ve been in New York for, how long is that, for almost 15 years.

NH: And you’ve just been pursuing the theater life since then?

CS: Yeah, I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked since then.

NH: I see a lot of plays here. The Buddy Holly Story, Singin’ in the Rain, Henry IV.

CS: Yeah, the Buddy Holly story. I’ve played Buddy Holly quite a lot; I’ve done that three or four times, and I’ve done Singin’ in the Rain a lot and, in between that, I try to do as many plays and Shakespeare as I can. It’s just been great. I’ve been in New York about 15 years and I’ve been a huge Monty Python fan my whole life. So when I got Spamalot, I already had the lines memorized, you know what I mean?

NH: Yeah, yeah.

CS: I mean, all the famous scenes and stuff, man, I was just like “Are you kidding?” This is fantastic. So, I get to play some great parts. I play five. All the principals, we all play a bunch of different characters, with the exception of the King and the Lady of the Lake. They only play one. I get to play the Historian, the narrator of the piece, which is in the movie as well. And I get to do Not Dead Fred, and there’s a whole number involved with that, about him not being dead. And I play one of the French taunters, not The French Taunter, I play his accomplice. And then I play the guy who sings “Brave Sir Robin,” the lead minstrel. And that song is completely intact from the movie.

NH: Is it?

CS: In fact, there’s only two songs in the movie. There’s the Camelot song, which is in our show, and then there’s the one I sing as the minstrel. The last character I play, of course, is Prince Herbert, which is basically a 15 year old girl trapped in a 12 year old boy’s body.

NH: Is he the prince who “just wants to sing?”

CS: That’s right. He just wants to find his true love, and he doesn’t know what that is yet, but he wants to escape the clutches of…he wants to escape the tall tower at Swamp Castle. Terry Jones originally played Prince Herbert. You know, of course the movie was 1975. The first time I saw the movie, I was nine, so that was 1979. My dad was watching it, and I just thought it was hilarious then, because of the coconuts and no horses, and the way they clop around and everything, you know. It just gets funnier as you get older. But it’s been a huge thrill because Eric Idle, one of the original Pythons is the one that put this together and made it into a musical. He’s a big idol of mine, actually, Eric Idle. And also, Mike Nichols, I’m a huge Mike Nichols fan. I have him on records when he was Nichols and May, when he was a comedian.

NH: Okay, I’m not familiar with him. Was he a part of the production of the play as well.

CS: Mike Nichols is our director, and he directed The Graduate, he directed Birdcage, he directed Closer a few years ago with Jude Law. If you Google him, you won’t believe how much comes up. Whether or not you want to use him in your article…I’m sure you do. He’s the biggest name attached to Spamalot, by far. He won the Tony award for Best Director for Spamalot, and Spamalot also won the Tony award for best musical.

We’ve been doing the tour for a year and a half, which has just been fantastic, I mean, I’m just having a blast. The first nine months, we were only in four cities. We were two months in each city. Since then, we’ve been everywhere from…we started off in Boston, we’ve been to Chicago, DC, Toronto for nine weeks, Dallas, Houston, Denver, Seattle, Portland, Salt Lake City, and now we’re in Ohio, and we’re coming to Michigan State. I wish we were at Michigan State longer. At Wharton Center, in the Great Hall, is where I did a lot of Mainstage. I did Freddy in My Fair Lady there, I did a chorus line there, I did Feste in Twelfth Night at Wharton Center

NH: And this was all as a student then, during those times?

CS: Yeah, I did the emcee in Cabaret. It was my last show, and that was at Wharton. So, I love the Wharton Center. It’s really a great place. It’s going to be great to see everyone and keep in touch with faculty and stuff like that. And also what’s really cool too is that my wife has joined the tour; she joined us about six months ago now.

NH: What role does she fill?

CS: She’s the standby for the Lady of the Lake. When she joined us six months ago, that was just golden, man, because we’re on the road together. We see each other all the time.

NH: I’m sure that’s alleviated a lot of the stress of being on the road.

CS: Absolutely. We have a great relationship, and we’ve been together five years. We just celebrated our one year anniversary last week, our wedding anniversary.

NH: Congratulations.

CS: Thanks, man, thanks. It’s just been great. Now, just to be traveling together is like an extended honeymoon. That’s pretty cool.

I’m from Michigan originally. I’m from Fenton. I’m not sure if you know where that’s at.

So I grew up there. I’m the oldest of seven. My parents are still in Fenton, so I’m going to stay there. My wife and I are going to stay there with my parents and do the commute, you know. It’s about an hour. We wish we were there longer to have an extra day off, because Mondays are our days off, because I love Michigan around the holidays and all that. But I’m glad to be showing my friends on the tour Michigan State and the campus and all that stuff.

NH: I wanted to ask too, is this the first time you’ve been back at the Wharton Center to perform since graduating, or have you made other stops here before?

CS: I’m trying to think, actually, my wife has performed there, a couple of years ago, and I was like “Ah, you’re performing at my alma mater!” I’ve been back to Michigan several times over the years, and said “Hi” to everybody at Michigan State, and been able to catch up with my professors and things like that, but this will be the first time back on that actual same stage, yeah.

NH: Since Cabaret, right?

CS: Yeah. A lot of tours come through the Fisher, and I’ll be like “Man, couldn’t we just come through Wharton Center.” It’s just a better place to hang out for a few weeks.

NH: Now, do you mind if I ask a few questions about the play itself, go through some of those. Now, I did see it this summer, but it was a different cast, so I think I have a general idea of how it runs, but I’m sure your production is different.

CS: The other thing I need to mention as well, our choreographer, Casey Nicholaw, is hysterical, and you can see it in his choreography, in his dance. Well, you’ve seen the show now, all the moves, everything you see that’s choreographed, is Casey. And a lot of other stuff as well. I tell you, the combination of Casey and Mike Nichols who’s directing, and then Eric Idle, one of the original Python members being there, and John DuPrez with the music.

Those four people, I can’t say enough about it, it’s just the best people to work for, to work with. And they always talk about Python, I remember Mike Nichols saying this several times, at the heart of it, it’s absolute sincerity in absurd situations.

NH: I’d say that’s a pretty good description.

CS: And really playing the truth of that. And I just love watching Graham Chapman in the movie because he just embodies that completely. He really talks about that a lot, meaning, just play the truth and play the sincerity of the moment. For my money, I think the best comedic actors are the ones who don’t know their in a comedy.

NH: I would say too that that’s what has set apart Monty Python too, that they don’t pause for the laughs, they don’t set it up like a joke.

CS: Yeah, they’re so committed to the material. I’m really excited to do it for…since we haven’t done Spamalot for the Michigan State audiences, I’m really looking forward to that, because it’s such a great house to play. I remember that from school.

NH: And it’s being anticipated, too. I’ve heard things all around campus, that a lot of people are buying up the tickets.

CS: Oh, that’s great, man. You know, we used to have Monty Python parties on campus, all the time. I’m 37, so I’m old. When you think about the impact that movie has had on people; when I was in high school, it was already a classic. It had been out since I had been five years old.

So when I first heard about Spamalot being done in New York, long before it opened on Broadway, I though “Well now, I wonder how they’re going to do that. I wonder how they’re going to put an ending on it as a Broadway show.”

NH: That was my question as I walked into the show, too.

CS: Yeah, I think they do a brilliant job, they really do, of wrapping it up. And, you know what, the other thing I’ll say too is this: The very reason I love theater and what I do for a living is, if you can take people on a journey for a couple of hours and you can make them forget their troubles and maybe even learn something about themselves or the world around them.

I think it’s a great thing, especially these days, that people can just come and have a great time for a couple hours. And I think this show, more than any other show I’ve been involved with really embodies that. People leave…well, you saw it, people leave humming the tunes and getting up and kind of going crazy and silly. Sometimes, it’s just what you need. And I think it has a lot of heart, this show, if it’s done right.

NH: Oh, I agree, for sure. I know I spent the next two weeks singing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”

CS: I think it’s brilliant that they used that, and when I first heard they were going to use that I thought Life of Brian, no way. It’s so funny that that’s the only song in Life of Brian. There’s no other music in Life of Brian and, at the end of the movie, on the cross, that song starts

NH: You’d say that it’s not just necessarily a play for fans of the movie?

CS: Absolutely not. We definitely have people that applaud a character’s entrance, just because they remember them from the movie, and that’s great. But then you have all the other people around in the audience, that are curious to know more, and they’re curious that this is a phenomenon. I think we have so many people that are coming to it their first time.

We get a lot of people that aren’t even subscribers, a lot of walk-up business, and I think that’s fantastic, that we’re introducing a whole new generation to this humor.

These are highly educated guys who wrote this stuff, and yet, to infuse that with the silliness is really quite brilliant in itself, and I don’t think it’s been done since.

NH: And I’m sure that‘s a gigantic part of the appeal, just the intelligence tied to the humor..

CS: Yeah, absolutely. On one hand you’re like “Oh, that was well said, what a brilliantly written line,” and in the very next moment you’ll be like “That’s clever,” and then you’re laughing at something completely different. Literally “And now for something completely different.”

NH: Alright, let’s talk about the play briefly, your role in it. You have this variety of parts that you’re playing. Is there one that you have a soft spot for, that you enjoy playing more than the others.

CS: It’s interesting, what I love about my part, about the parts I play, is that I get to be a chameleon. All five of the parts I play are very different from each other. They’re all very different people. I love that, because it gives you a lot to play with. As long as you stick to the truth of everything, the truth at hand, it’s just so much fun.

I guess if I had a favorite one I’d say this, I get dragged, slapped, hit, carried, and slung over people’s shoulders the whole show. Basically, I get mandled, and I mean manhandled, the whole show. And all the physical stuff is a lot of fun, but I would say…if I had a soft spot for one character, I would say Prince Herbert. I love playing Prince Herbert. It’s really an odd thing. My wife went on as the Lady of the Lake recently, and, you know at the end when they all get married?

NH: Right.

CS: Well, she’s standing there in her beautiful bride’s dress as the Lady of the Lake, and I’m standing there in my bride’s dress. I’m the bride with the face for radio, I truly have a face for radio, in that outfit, and otherwise. So we took a picture, the two brides, and we thought, “Now wouldn’t that be a hilarious Christmas card?”

NH: Oh yeah.

CS: It really hit me one night when she was on, because she gets done with her number in the second act, “Whatever Happened to my Part?” the big diva’s lament number, and then the curtain goes up, and there I am revealed with my bow and arrow. And I’m thinking as she’s walking offstage, “There goes the pretty girl, and here comes the not-so-pretty girl.” And it’s the only moment in the show when we are on stage at the same time, and it’s just for a second.

NH: Do you have plans for the future? Do you have another play you’re pursuing after this is over, or is that just kind of up in the air for now?

CS: Do you mean for me, in terms of a different show? Now that my wife’s on the tour, we’re having a great time together, and we’ll do this for a while. Then we’ll see what happens. Right now we’re here until June, contractually and everything. There are other things that I’d like to be a part of down the line, Young Frankenstein has just come out and, you know, Legally Blonde.

Right now I’m having so much fun playing these parts in a show about Monty Python, that it’s just too much fun.