So many know him from his years as Charlie, the straight-arrow personal assistant to President Jed Bartlett, portrayed by Martin Sheen on The West Wing. Now, Dulé Hill is portraying the late great singer Nat King Cole off-Broadway in Lights Out. The show has been extended to the end of June.
The playwrights Colman Domingo (yes, that one) and Patricia McGregor here imagine the intense thoughts clashing in Cole’s mind in 1957, on the night of his final NBC broadcast. It was, after all, a time when racism was alive and well. “Madison Avenue does not like the dark,” goes one reminder here of those cautious times.
Hill has been with this show—which he carefully calls “a play with music, not a musical”—since its 2016 run in Los Angeles. “I was a huge fan of Colman, Patricia, and Daniel Watts (who portrays Sammy Davis, Jr.),” Hill told me. “They work with love and rigor and really search to do material that affects people.”
Not that he wasn’t taken aback at first by the offer to play the legend. “It was daunting, and I asked if they were out of their minds,” he recalls. “Nat King Cole’s voice was so specific. I started listening to him incessantly, to get the tone of his voice, how he sang his notes. The playlist is long. But I kept going. We’re doing even more songs now in the show, but staying with this has allowed me to get over the daunting bridge.”
There are no regrets from those who took the gamble on the actor to star in the production. “He is all I had hoped for and so much more,” says Patricia McGregor. “He is spectacular on stage, a leader in the room, and has become a core collaborator and dear friend.”
Hill points out that while the show may be historical, it is also a resonant reminder. “It’s been the journey of a lifetime, connecting Mr. Cole’s ride through that period, with where we are today,” he says. “It’s my honor to bring this to New York City.” And New Yorkers are loving him back.
“It’s a joy to hear that,” he says. “It’s a lot of work but we do feel the engagement of the audience. And by the end, they release energy back to us. It warms my heart. Theater is too much work not to make it impactful.”
What surprises audiences most is not the voice, but the feet. He and co-star Watts do a tap dance number which literally brings down the house.
“Funny how life goes,” Hill says. “When I tried to find space for myself as an actor, I was always known for my work as a dancer.” (As a young lad, he performed in The Tap Dance Kid and Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk, on stage.) “So now I’m an actor who surprises [people] that I can dance.”
Aaron Sorkin, who created The West Wing, once said, “If more dancers act like Dulé, we need to hire more dancers.”
The truth is, Nat King Cole was not a dancer, per se, but as Hill says, “The way they’ve crafted the story, it allows this Mr. Cole to find different avenues to express what’s going on within him. To craft a piece that tells a story through dance as well as song…that really shines.”
Even though he had done TV series like Psych, and, more recently, the reboot of The Wonder Years, it was The West Wing which truly brought Dulé Hill national attention. ”It was the gift of a lifetime,” he says. “We premiered it 25 years ago, and it still resonates as impactful.”
“It breaks my heart that as a nation we’re not doing enough to move the ball forward, to have a peaceful existence,” he adds. “The show certainly changed the trajectory of my career and I’m forever grateful.”
The cast still keeps in touch: “We have a text chain of what we are all doing,” he says. “I saw Richard Schiff in a show here. Allison Janney is coming to town this week and seeing mine. Janel Moloney also. They’ve gone from being co-workers to friends to almost family. I love them all so much.“
Lawrence O’Donnell, now a host on MSNBC, was a writer and eventual producer of The West Wing. He saw Lights Out when it played in Los Angeles. and says, “We then all realized we were using about one percent of his talent.”
Hill’s former West Wing co-star Bradley Whitford told me, “To me, Dulé is the definition of grace. And not just because he’s a triple threat. I have never heard him say a bad word about another human being in 25 years. He is a constant fountain of light, the same humble soul filled with gratitude that just wants to make sure the shy guy over in the corner has someone to talk to.”
Now 50, Dulé Hill is back where he began—on a New York stage. But his priorities are different. “I have a young child [a six-year old son], and I live in Los Angeles,” he says. “So, while I love this, to take me away from my family, there is a cost, and it has to be worth the payment. As Nat King Cole says in this play, ‘I missed every holiday.’ So, I am cognizant of time. It’s not a renewable energy. I also love the screen, so I hope to stay on the merry go round. Who knows what will be next?”
Paging Aaron Sorkin...
Michele Willens last wrote the profile of Elizabeth Marvel for the Daily Beast.
