Theater New Yorkers sing just for the joy of it
By RETTA BLANEY
Michael McElroy likes watching the
Catholic members of his choir. Having grown up in congregations with
unenthusiastic singing, they dont quite know what to do when they are hit
by the power of his Baptist-based gospel music. But it doesnt take long
before they are converts, musically at least.
Hearing this kind of music from a black Baptist tradition
brought an intensity I had never experienced before, Bertilla Baker said.
It just calls in the presence of the Holy Spirit, which is palpable, real
and intense.
Baker is one of about 50 members of Broadway Inspirational Voices,
a gospel choir of New York singer/actors founded and directed by McElroy, who
is currently appearing in the Off-Broadway blues musical Thunder Knocking
on the Door. The choir, which performs for charities and is largely
unpaid, recently released its first full-length CD, Grace. Its 11
hymns were sung by 43 singers from more than a dozen Broadway shows.
McElroy, 35, is thrilled to see the change come over those who
have not grown up with gospel music. You cant fake it and
theres nothing you can do to make it happen, he said. It
comes from a sense of being vulnerable, open to the Holy Spirit moving in you.
We all have different vocabularies of how we worship. Its interesting to
see them wrestling with how to handle it when an experience comes over them.
Sometimes they jump up or let the tears flow.
It wasnt part of Bakers experience. Although she grew
up Catholic in Watertown, N.Y., Baker lost interest in that tradition after the
Second Vatican Council ended in 1965 and music standards plunged to what she
calls truly wretched.
As a member of Broadway Inspirational Voices, Baker sees the power
of gospel music enhanced by McElroys direction. Michael has the
ears of life and he hears everything, the notes and the inflections, she
said. Its like decorating a hall for the Holy Spirit to come
in.
McElroys grandfather was a minister at the Harvest
Missionary Baptist Church in Cleveland and later his stepfather was a minister
there. His grandmother played piano and directed the choir, in which he sang
with his mother, brother, sister, aunt and uncle. Our family was the
heart and center of that church and also the musical center, he said.
I had a strong sense of music, especially gospel music.
As a student at Shaker Heights High School, he formed a gospel
choir of multiethnic, multiracial singers, called it Mixed Emotions, and took
it on tour around Ohio for two years. He again used music to bring people
together as a student at Carnegie Mellon University, where he was director of
its gospel choir.
In 1993, three years after he arrived in New York, Nephi Wimmer, a
friend and fellow actor, died of AIDS. It was McElroys first experience
of losing someone to the disease, and he was devastated.
He sought out the healing power of music. I wanted to do
gospel. That sustained me. My connection to God I find through that
music.
He asked 10 other Broadway actors to do a gospel concert with him.
They decided to do it for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, a nonprofit
fundraising and grant-making organization. The response was overwhelming,
McElroy said. We decided to make it a yearly event. It grew in importance
to the community.
Gospel music is universal, he said. It was a joy to me to
watch people discover for the first time the feeling of the inclusive power of
the music. You cant escape the power of this music whether youre
Jewish or Muslim.
Its power gave Christopher Zelno a sense of community he never
found in the Catholic church. As a gay person, I never felt welcome or
that I was OK with them. I went through some personal problems a few years ago
and it was a time of real darkness, but I didnt feel I could turn to the
church for help.
Zelno, who has appeared on Broadway and the 20th anniversary tour
of Jesus Christ Superstar, had eight years of Catholic education,
four years of after-school high school religion classes and was an altar boy at
St. Margarets Church in Narbeth, Pa., where he still attends Mass with
his family when he goes home for holidays. There was a period in the
early 90s when I wasnt sure I believed in anything, he said.
Through my work in the choir its only been in the past seven years
that I feel Ive developed any conscious contact with God that works for
me.
The music goes right through me to my soul, the very base of
my soul, and strikes something. Something happens and it becomes good and right
and effective, Zelno said.
He calls it a huge difference from the deadly music of
his home parish, where few people bothered to sing. Im fortunate
now from the music standpoint and the spiritual standpoint, he said.
Zelno, 35, said the exception he found growing up was in the folk
Mass. It was the closest thing to being at all visceral or spiritual or
effective. It wasnt that great, but it had a contemporary bent. It was
better than the high Mass where the choir sounded half dead.
For Shoshana Bean, the difference from her childhood music
isnt just in the depth -- its in the faith as well. As a religious
Jew, Bean, 24, now finds herself singing verses like My life was full of
sin, Jesus washed my soul within. Since Jesus purified my soul, I will rejoice
hes made me whole.
Being musically centered is what heals me, said Bean,
who is currently in the Broadway musical Hairspray. Its
opening up body and mouth and letting something out that is beyond words. The
style takes over.
The choir is booked throughout the year, performing four major
concerts and appearing at about a dozen events annually. Even though McElroy
doesnt get paid for it, he regularly sacrifices work if it interferes
with the choirs Tuesday afternoon rehearsals.
I believe God put me here for a reason and gave me the gifts
I have for a reason. That sustains me, he said.
His belief and devotion have paid off. Broadway Inspirational
Voices has performed at the Tony Awards ceremony in 2000, for President Clinton
at OpSail 2000, the lighting of the Olympic torch in 2001 and recorded a CD
with Bob Dylan titled In the Garden.
The choir continues its annual concerts for Broadway Cares/Equity
Fights AIDS; so far the choir has raised close to $200,000. This years
concerts will be Oct. 6 and 7 at the Ethical Culture Society in Manhattan.
The choir is about 60 percent black, 35 percent white and 5
percent Latino and Asian. Besides the half-dozen Catholics, there are Baptist,
Presbyterian, African-Methodist, Jewish and Buddhist members. McElroy said the
music transcends their differences. It was born out of a place of pain
and hope, he said.
McElroy took time choosing the CDs title. Grace
is such a simple word, but it said so much. Its the amazing grace God
gives you that steps in and allows you to blossom. Gods grace allowed us
to do this.
Retta Blaneys latest book, Working on the Inside: The
Spiritual Life Through the Eyes of Actors, will be published next year by
Sheed & Ward.
National Catholic Reporter, August 30,
2002
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