This article has been updated since it first appeared in print.
Photo by Double Image Studios
Desirée Roots began her performance career in Richmond as a youngster and grew into an in-demand entertainer and a community arts advocate. Now she’s stepping into an arts administration role with Virginia Repertory Theatre. On Feb. 23 at 7 p.m., she’ll reprise “Forever Ella,” her popular Ella Fitzgerald tribute, at the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen. Roots wrote and directed this production under the musical direction of James Gates. We recently spoke with her about this new stage in her life.
Richmond magazine: You are the first of what’ll be a trio of co-artistic directors at Virginia Rep, each with a proscribed role — education, adult audience programming and yours, community. This is a different approach to theater management.
Desirée Roots: I say that we’re going to be a three-headed dragon. I’m the lucky one in our field, and I got cast first. We’re looking at this as a collective thought process that will service the community and the theater as a whole by giving the best outcome. For the education side, what can we take into the schools when the schools will let us come back in? So this is a new learning curve for everybody: It’s not the “new normal,” I’m calling it the “new new.” That was then and this is now, and we don’t know what’s coming.
RM: How many times have you portrayed Ella Fitzgerald?
Roots: I really have lost count about how many times. I was in “Ella and Her Fella Frank” 20 years ago, when the eternal Frank Sinatra, otherwise known as Scott Wichmann, and I did it in North Carolina. I tallied up how many [performances] Scott and I have done of “Ella and Her Fella,” and that’s I think 24. “Forever Ella,” what I’m doing at Glen Allen, is renamed from “Ella at 100,” the anniversary show. The biggest hurdle for me was Ella’s scat singing. I’ve not ever done scat and had to teach myself.
RM: It’s a fine line between impersonation and singing her music in your voice.
Roots: You hit the nail on the head. I don’t want to give an impersonation. I want to deliver this lyrical beauty in her way. When Bo Wilson was rewriting “Ella and Her Fella,” he asked what song is a must, and I replied that if I’m going to challenge myself and become her, it’s “Mr. Paganini.” And then I had nightmares. [Laughs] When I start dreaming about the music, that’s how I know it’s a part of me. I started dreaming about Ella, and the different ways she’d approach a piece. In my research I’d listen to early recordings to her late 70s. That way I discovered different versions of the same song from the various parts of her career.
RM: Have you ever met anyone as a result of your portrayal who experienced Fitzgerald live?
Roots: This last time we did it at Virginia Rep. An older gentleman, I think he’s 84, and a retired trumpet player. Thing was, because of COVID, we weren’t doing meet-and-greets after the show. So Scott and I would walk around to our cars, and the man saw us, crossed the street and told me he’d seen her many times, and that I reminded him of a young Ella. He actually made me cry.
“Forever Ella With Desiree Roots and Friends” comes to The Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen on Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. Masks required. Tickets are $38.
