The "ABBA-solutely Fabulous" musical "Mamma Mia!" opens in Milwaukee July 2 with a cast that boasts two guys from Wisconsin: Milwaukee native Tony Clements and Richard Cornette, from Green Bay. Both are enjoying exceptional good luck in the high-risk show business world but trod different paths to their roles as colleagues in this touring musical.
It seems appropriate that we caught up with Clements in Louisville, after his day off, during which he visited Mammoth Cave, the underground womb that took the life of Floyd Collins in the 1930s. Clements portrayed the adventurous Kentuckian in Skylight Opera's "Floyd Collins," in September 2000.
This tenor's education might best be summed up as "Hands-on in the School of Hard Knocks." No college followed the exit of Milwaukee-born Clements from Waterford Union High School but music did. The public first discovered him on keyboard and vocals with the band R.S.V.P.
"We were pretty good," Clements remembers. But gigging with the band every weekend prohibited him from theater work, "So I had to quit the band after seven or eight years ...which I was ready to do at that point anyway." Stints with Waukesha Civic Theatre, the now-extinct Oscar's Dinner Theatre (producer of the musicals "Baby," "She Loves Me," "Sugar") and Josephine Busalacchi's Milwaukee Opera followed.
"Along the way I kept learning from the people around me; I tried to be a sponge and soak up what those people knew." Apparently it worked.
"I came home one day and there was a message on my answering machine from Norman Moses. I just about jumped out of my pants; to believe that Norman Moses had called me to come in and audition for something that he planned to direct. Wow!"
Recognition by Moses and Skylight Opera meant a step up to the professional level. So surely the next step up meant going to New York?
"No," Clements reveals; "I don't mean to put it down but my whole goal kept changing right in Milwaukee from 'Gee, I want to do theatre,' and so I did a little bit of community theatre. Then the goal upped to 'Maybe someone would pay me to do this' and then somebody did. And I thought, 'Wow! It's kind of a part-time job.'
{INSERT_RELATED}"'So maybe this could be my full-time job and I can do a little part-time work to supplement it.' And that happened and then I thought, 'Maybe I don't need a part-time job and this could be all of it,' and that happened! So, it just kind of 'happened' and I've been lucky enough to work with great people who supported me and nudged me along. And it doesn't matter to me where I do it. Now that may sound high and mighty, but it's the work that's important."
Recently someone asked Clements what he does for fun and the questioner didn't quite understand that the actor doesn't golf, go camping, indulge in hobbies ... that sort of thing.
"Know why?" he asks rhetorically. "My work is my fun. I don't have to go to a job 9-to-5 every day, to earn money to do what I love on the weekend. Because I do what I love every day."
Clements is grateful for his recent good fortune. Initially he had to be bulldozed by a fellow auditioner who insisted he attend the "Mamma Mia" tryouts. Clements got cast but his friend did not, although the latter has been gentlemanly enough to never bring up the subject. They're still great buddies.
Now Richard Cornette has an entirely different story to tell although the two men share an early love for music.
"I performed from really very young on. I did drum and bugle corps in the summers. I started band right away, playing trumpet. I picked up piano."
Sports also had a major grip on his interest and except for two weighty influences -- "a couple of injuries in high school football" and "a profound impact by my choir teacher" -- the Green Bay Packers might have discovered a super player only a few miles away at Luxemburg High.
" I did forensics, I did the one-acts. I did the plays ... the whole nine yards," he says. He also held a job as a disk jockey at WAUN in Kewaunee -- "the local polka station. Don't laugh. I loved it."
Unlike Clements, Cornette attended college -- UW-Stevens Point -- where he did a ton of work, including,every main stage musical. Then, his lucky break: Job offers before graduation, including interest from an agent.
"New York, here I come," he says.
Just a few weeks after his arrival in Gotham, he sat waiting to audition for a touring company of the successful musical, "Les Miserables."
"Across the hall they're auditioning for an industrial show, something for Coca-Cola. And the director comes out and says, 'Are you here for us?' I shook my head. 'Well, will you come in and audition for us?'"
That unexpected audition resulted in four industrial shows and one world-wide Coke TV commercial. It also meant a leather wallet stuffed with money to live on for six months.
"It didn't surprise me; it frustrated me. Fresh out of college with an agent, got a great gig right away and then all of a sudden I couldn't book."
Enter Richard the Waiter.
"(I) worked at Planet Hollywood in Times Square (for a) couple of months," he remembers. "Then I was fortunate enough to get called in for the casting director of "Swing!" (I) got the job and stayed with that [touring] musical for a few months. On one of my days off, I flew to New York to audition for 'Mamma Mia!'"
And that's how Cornette comes to make his second professional appearance in Wisconsin (the first was with "Swing!").
Both actors sing in "Mamma Mia's" unique ensemble and both understudy speaking roles: Clements covers for the three principal males who play prospective fathers and Cornette stands by for the young juvenile. With a little bit of luck they'll play those roles for a few performances in Milwaukee.
Both men point to audience response as their main love for the show.
"Even as part of the ensemble -- I'm on stage 15 minutes, maybe, and then I'm backstage singing in a vocal booth," Clements says. "But when we perform the finale, it's amazing. People stand and scream every night, they're so enthusiastic. If you're coming to see great theatre, that's not what this is. It's silly and simple-minded and fun and joyous. And the music -- especially if you remember any of this music -- it's hot!"
Audiences in New York concur, where the ticket is second hottest only to "The Producers."
"Mamma Mia!" runs at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts July 2-14. Tickets may be ordered from the box office, (414) 273-7206 or (888) 612-7206 or from Ticketmaster, (414) 276-4545.
