Tonight (January 14th), Sting hits the stage in the Los Angeles touring revival of his musical, The Last Ship. The month-long Californian stand runs through February 16th at the Ahmanson Theatre. Sting stars as shipyard foreman, “Jackie White,” and will perform the role at every performance. The show's upcoming road jaunt will play further residencies in San Francisco; Washington, D.C.; and St. Paul; before closing in Detroit.
We recently snagged some one-on-one time with Sting, and he told us that immersing himself into a theatre production always seems to bring out the best in him: “I mean, I've been in musical theatre before this; I was in The Threepenny Opera on Broadway in the '80s. It's a different discipline. I'm not playing myself — I mean, there are aspects of me in the songs, but I'm playing another character. That's challenging and also very freeing. Y'know, I don't have to be me. In fact, one of the great things about writing this musical is that I don't have to be in my own head. I'm getting into someone else's head. It's an act of empathy. You enter someone else's life and you see the world from their point of view.”
'The Last Ship' U.S. theatre runs (subject to change):