Tallahassee Democrat from Tallahassee, Florida • Page 52

i- V' l--V'WW Tallahassee Democrat 1 CDSunday, September 20, 1998 Arts Estertalmext- Keeping you in touch with THEATfcR Picking that pet feet home Co-op MuorMnQ can stretch your Braxton i singtaj "Hi is right at your a different tune fingertips 'A nr. with HOMEHUNTER at www.taUahassee.com a complete Tallahassee Board of Realtors hlLS property listings. y'Hl! advertising dusrtismg dollars A well planned advertisins program, using co-op dollars will help you, our advertiser, get the most out of your advertising investment. Call Tracey Vause, our co-op specialist for further information 599-2271. Keeping you in touch" wwwtdo.com MLS listings by tin; bedrooms, located and how to contact them.

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To call Cindy Kucheman at (850)599-2112 TXllaiiassee Draxmr Kteptigycuriffiuch' The singer is playing Belie in "Beauty and the Beast." By Jim Beckerman THE RECORO 'The new song Toni Braxton sings in "Beauty and the Beast," written especially for her Broadway debut, is called "A Change in Me." And that about says it all. Braxton is undergoing a transformation as incredible as anything in this fairy tale musical about a beast who becomes a handsome prince. Start with her image. The sultry, husky-voiced singer in the too-tight pants, the smolderingly sexy pop diva who caused pandemonium on the "Tonight Show" by plopping down in host Jay Leno's lap, has become the soul of maidenly virtue as Belle, the heroine of this Broadway spectacle based on the Walt Disney animated film. "It's another part of who I am," she says.

Her career, too, is getting a serious make-over. Braxton who collects Gram-mys the way other people might collect Royal Doulton figurines (eight nominations, five awards), whose two albums have sold a collective 17 million copies, and whose hit singles like "I Don't Want To" and "Breathe Again" have been heard everywhere from MTV to the "Waiting to Exhale" soundtrack is temporarily putting her recording career on hold to try something entirely new theater. The catch? She's never performed onstage before. Not off-Broadway. Not in a school play.

Nothing. Nada. "They're taking a big chance on me, and I'm taking a big chance on this," she says. Of course, there may be, uh, compelling reasons. Braxton is reluctant to go into detail, but it's public knowledge that she filed for bankruptcy in Los Angeles in January, claiming she wasn't getting a big enough paycheck from her record company, LaFace Records, run by Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds and L.A.

Reid, her producers. Earlier, she had filed a lawsuit against LaFace's parent company, Arista Records, claiming that although her albums, "Toni Braxton" and "Secrets," earned Arista about $170 million, she was only making about 35 cents an album (a dollar is the typical going rate for a Grammy-winning star). Braxton is now reportedly $2 million in debt I But since it was Edmonds and LaFace that propelled her to solo stardom in the first place, discovering her in 1990 when she was just a member of the family singing quintet The Braxtons, she's not about to diss the hand that feeds her. At least, not today. "I have no regrets, no regrets at all," is all Braxton will say about her years with LaFace.

"We worked together to get my career the way it is if I hadn't, I probably wouldn't be doing this play. There are things I wish I had done differently, but I don't have any regrets." The temporary snag in her recording career put Braxton on the alert for other options. Acting was one of them In addition to "Beauty and the Beast," she was offered several roles in the Frankie Lymon biographical film, "Why Do Fools Fall in Love," released last week. But in that instance, with her problems with LaFace fresh on her mind, Braxton was reluctant to sign on the dotted line. "It jusl didn't work out," she says.

"I think the problem was some record stuff, like the singles rights and this and that, because they wanted a soundtrack. I don't remember all the semantics involved, but it just didn't work out" Just as well, because if Braxton is going to take a first stab at acting no experience required she'd rather do it onstage than in a mswo wm cm mm om cuttm ss fsmttyfl im-ir rec roor trf SuolM1 your fev jHour famil' 'oorri carpet yol If 1 carpe 3 our foy V' I'iLrim- I r'RJ jib Vou -vf 1 1 i'J-'-t-. carpet yot carpe Vm carpel loom Bf UoW1) )S2 lining roc Vou i I I AIT JmSM MICHAEL CAULFIELDThe Associated Press Toni Braxton, Grammy collector, is making her way on Broadway. film. Particularly if it's a musical like "Beauty and the Beast," which she enters foi previews this week, with an official opening for critics in October.

"This is a lot easier," she says. "Because I can do what I'm comfortable with I can sing. Also, nighl after night, I have time to perfect it and get it better and better and better. You have four or five weeks of previews to get better, so by the time you really have to hit it, you're there. You're prepared.

With film, you may do five or six takes, but you don't know which one the director's going to use." It helps that Braxton, in addition to being stage-struck, is also "Beauty and the Beast'-struck. "I've seen the movie at least 100 times," she says. "I love it. It's one of my favorite movies, that and 'The Lion And I always wanted to do Broadway, from when I first saw 'A Chorus Line when I was younger." "Beauty and the Beast" has already proven a refuge for troubled pop stars: Debbie now Deborah Gibson has played role of Belle since September 1997. But Braxton, who joins the cast along with a new Beast, James Barbour, and a new Lumiere, Meshach Taylor is a special case.

"As a composer, I'm over the moon about her," says Alan Menken, who wrote the "Beauty and the Beast" score with lyricists Tim Rice and the late Howard Ashman. As a result, Menken and Rice have written a new song for her an unusual move for a hit show that's been up and running for four years. "We talked about it is there something we could do to give Toni a little something special, a little something extra?" Menken says. "In 99 percent of the cases where that's requested, you go, 'That's not going to work everything's complete, it's done. But we believe this will really add to the score.

We'll see what happens. It's definitely uncharted waters." Braxton, 31, has been navigat ing those waters all her life. The oldest of six children growing up Severn, Braxton was raised in a strict religious household in which secular music was prohibited. As a child, she had to sneak a peek at such pop stars as Dionne Warwick. Eventually, though, her Pentecostal minister father and opera singer mother relaxed and that made things easier for her younger siblings, Braxton says.

"My parents were strict when I was coming up," she says. "My father was embarking on his spiritu ality at the time, so we kind of went along with it. By the time I got of age, old enough to make the decisions and choices, that strict ness kind of changed," she says. "I'm the oldest of six kids, and I'm a girl, so I kind of had to lead the way, break the ice," Braxton says. "I know I've made it a lot easier for the rest of them.

By the time my younger sister came along it was totally different. My parents had to change. Times were changing." tla mJ I 'Pric wdwt. SpKioi Buy. kit feyv chwg.i or.

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