the arts
Chita Rivera
I
s there a greater musical theater
living legend than Chita Rivera?
We think not. A 10-time Tony
nominee and two-time winner,
she’s still going strong into her 80s.
Across the span of time, Rivera has
performed several times at Paper
Mill Playhouse, including in
Anything Goes in 2000.
“I’ve always looked forward to
going to Paper Mill,” she says. “I like
the theater, the people, the audi-
ences. They love their theater. The
productions are always top-drawer. I
like the fact it’s so close to New York.
It just is a warm, professional and fun
place to be.”
For all that, Rivera argues that
Paper Mill Playhouse serves a greater
purpose. And that’s to nurture the
38
FALL 2017 MILLBURN & SHORT HILLS MAGAZINE
Julia Knitel
S
READ
OUR Q&A WITH
COVER SUBJECT
JULIA KNITEL
ON PAGE 42
ome actors bless Paper Mill Playhouse with
their star power, and some develop their
star power there. Julia Knitel belongs in the
latter category. The singer-dancer-actress, who
hails from Fair Lawn, attended the playhouse’s conser-
vatory, and what she learned there paved the way for her to
rocket from the ensemble of Beautiful, Broadway’s Carole King musical,
to a spot as the King character’s understudy, and from several turns as
King on Broadway to starring for a year in the Beautiful national tour.
Knitel happily recounts how her mom and dad, both actors and voice
teachers, had a student in the Paper Mill Playhouse program. They
realized young Julia should audition, but it took a bit of finagling.
“My dad worked at Paper Mill decades ago in Evita, I believe, but we
didn’t know the youth program was a thing,” she says. “I was only 9,
and you have to be 10 to get into it. I think that student’s mother made
a call to Patrick, who’s still one of the artistic directors at Paper Mill,
and said, ‘Can you see this 9-year-old girl? Just let her audition?’ They
let me in. I was younger than everybody and taller than everybody.”
Knitel spent “the most wonderful summer” there, immersed in doing
what she loved, but at a new level. She ultimately logged seven years in
the conservatory, stopping only when she booked her first Broadway
musical, Bye Bye Birdie.
“Really, truly, what Paper Mill harps on is teaching children how
to be professionals,” she explains. “The training I got — not to speak
during a rehearsal, not to roll your eyes, not to ever disrespect anyone,
to be kind, to be a team player, not to touch anybody’s props, silly
things like that, that you think, ‘Oh well, whatever’ — has stuck with
me. I’m still trying to be what they taught me to be.”
Chita Rivera performs
on the PBS 2015
Summer TCA Tour.
next generation of Chita Riveras.
“Paper Mill opens up a wider range
for young people to be able to see, in
their area, first-class productions,” she
says. “As a performer, you always feel
you can take a new production there
and try it out. As far as teaching kids,
it’s just the best. They feel good
about it, too.”
Rivera wouldn’t be surprised if
she played Paper Mill Playhouse
again one day. But it’s not on her
current schedule. She recently
enjoyed a run at the Carlyle Hotel
and this fall will tour with Tommy
Tune in Chita & Tune — Two for
the Road. Not in her plans, ever:
retirement.
“I wake up in the morning and
want to do what I love to do, and
that is be a vessel for some writer,
song or librettist, and relate to an
audience,” Rivera says. “It’s what I do.
It’s like breathing. I don’t look at the
clock. I don’t think about the clock.
I just try to stay healthy. What I do
is simply live. That’s what I tell the
kids...‘Be sincere to your passion, do it
as much as you can and enjoy it.’”
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SHOTWELL/INVISION/AP
Julia Knitel
at Paper Mill
Playhouse.