-Our first guest tonight is an Emmy, Grammy and award --
Academy Award, excuse me, winning rapper and actor.
He makes his Broadway debut in "Between Riverside and Crazy,"
which is playing at the Hayes Theater.
Please welcome back to the show our friend Common, everybody.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Welcome back.
-Hey, what's going on, Seth? -I'm so happy to have you.
Thank you for being here on a show day.
I know you've got to go and be on the Broadway stage tonight.
-Yes, it's amazing,
I'm thinking like, wow, I've got a show tonight.
It's amazing thing to happen, and I'm here with you.
-Because this is your -- this your Broadway debut.
-Yes. -The last time you were in
a play was a school play, is that accurate?
-Very true, very true. -Wow.
-"Christmas Carol" when I was like in second grade.
-Who were you in "Christmas Carol?"
-I was Tiny Tim.
-Oh, well, look at that.
You've outgrown the role.
-Yes, yes.
-It happens to all our best Tiny Tims.
-Yeah, and I didn't get a lot of love for my role in that,
so that didn't help my -- that didn't help my acting career.
-At second grade, you said I'm going to take a break,
I'm gonna establish myself in a lot of other mediums...
-Yes, that's it. -...and then I will
return to the stage. -Yeah.
My mother kind of orchestrated that break because
she was like -- she kept talking about how great
my friend did in the play.
[ Laughter ]
And really didn't mention much about my work,
so I was like, okay, I get it.
-She was like, you know, Common, Tiny Tim
is supposed to be a sympathetic character.
-Yeah, exactly, exactly.
I was playing him too cool.
-Yeah, way too cool.
Your Tiny Tim was way too cool.
Everybody's like he gonna get knocked down a peg.
So you -- this is a play, wonderful family drama.
It's about a widowed ex-cop.
You play his previously incarcerated son.
-Yes. -Gorgeous play.
This is a play that had been off Broadway.
Most of the cast is back. You're the new kid on the block.
Even with all your success, does it feel -- do you feel
like the rookie with this group of incredible actors?
-Oh, I feel so much like the rookie,
like a freshman in high school, right?
Because it's like they have been together for so long,
and they just know the ropes of theater, like,
and it's just an incredible cast.
They really like superheroes.
Really, they just -- you know, everybody might not know
each actor's name all the time, but these actors are just --
this cast is phenomenal.
So I felt like I was joining a cast of superheroes,
and I was like, hey, I got something, too.
But they gave me a little love.
They gave me love from the beginning,
and then once they saw how, like, passionate I was,
and I was coming in understanding
I had a lot to learn.
And no matter what I did before, they knew more than me
and they're more experienced than me.
So I took it from that perspective, and also just in
gratitude of being able to be doing a play, man,
doing theater, doing Broadway.
Like, I didn't dream of that
when I was on the south side of Chicago
thinking I would be --
-Yeah.
[ Cheers and applause ]
You obviously -- you're no stranger to live performance,
you're no stranger to being on a stage in front of an audience.
Are there technical aspects of this
that have shocked you or surprised you?
-Yeah, I'm almost embarrassed to say, but the truth is,
thank God I have, like, friends who are into theater,
because a director friend of mine,
Owarya, who I work with often,
she said, okay, a couple of things.
This is before my first rehearsal.
She said you be on time, on time, early is on time.
So I was early every day, but she also said,
do you know where stage -- what downstage and upstage is
and stage left and stage right.
And I really didn't know.
[ Laughter ]
So I was grateful she sent me a diagram with that.
And it's all type of rules, like signing in.
You sign in when you come into the theater,
like signing in for work, like you punching in for work.
And if you don't like -- if I don't leave the building,
I still have to sign in, meaning we have two
shows in a day.
I sign in for the first show.
Even if I don't leave the building, I still have
to sign in for the second show.
It's just theater rules that I'm just like, wow, okay,
but I love the culture.
-There's no sign-in sheet at rap concerts?
-No, no, no.
[ Laughter ]
-Guys, I know we've got a big rap concert.
You've got to sign in.
[ Laughter ]
--Boy, there would be no concerts.
-What about -- You know, obviously you're on stage,
and you know as a performer, as a rapper,
you connect with the audience.
That's got to be a really important thing.
In a show, you want to connect with them as well,
but it must be a totally different tool kit.
-Yeah, no, a live concert is a whole different thing.
Because, you know, when I'm performing at a live concert,
I'm like come on, say hoo, yeah, let's rock it.
I'm directly to the crowd.
You know, in a play, it's -- you're playing this character,
and really you're interacting and connection is with the other
actors on stage.
And the audience is a part of the play, but you're not
directing your energy or thoughts towards the audience.
It's towards the other actors.
And emotionally, the places you have to go,
even though I play -- I play --
"Between Riverside and Crazy" is really a lot of laughs,
but it also has a lot of emotion to it and grit.
So to go to those emotional places is much different
than rocking out on stage. You know what I mean?
-Both cases, live performance, things can go wrong.
Has anything gone wrong on stage in the play yet?
-Well, I mean, for me, like, it's a point in the play
where I'm using this -- where I'm giving something away.
But I'm using a wheelchair.
And I got stuck in the wheelchair really quick
for a minute and couldn't move.
But I don't know if everybody noticed it, but I did.
I kind of laughed to myself.
And sometimes, you know, in the play I'm making
a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in one of the scenes,
and that doesn't always go right.
[ Laughter ]
But overall it's just like -- I've been in concerts
where the sound has went out and you just have to
rap out loud to people.
So nothing makes me too scared, too nervous,
but I must say, we have had a couple of little trip ups.
-You've never had to take out your map of where stage left
and stage right is?
-Not in a rap -- not in a rap show.
-I got a lot more questions for you.
We'll be right back with more from Common, everybody.