Arts & Entertainment

On being a diva

Actress’s book offers advice, Hollywood dish

Published

14 years ago

May 10, 2012

Terri Schlichenmeyer

‘Redefining Diva’
By Sheryl Lee Ralph
Gallery Books
$14/200 pages

(Image courtesy Gallery Books)

Is it so horrible to know what you want?

You don’t think so. That’s why you’re decisive, you state your needs clearly and firmly, and you expect people to act accordingly. What’s wrong with that?

Nothing. So why do people call you the “B” word that rhymes with itch? You’re not nasty or horrible, so why would they call you a diva?

Author Sheryl Lee Ralph doesn’t know the answer. But, as she says in her new book, “Redefining Diva,” if they call you that last name, you really should thank them.

OK, so you’re a diva. What is that, anyhow?

The word, says Ralph, has gotten a bum rap lately, but it was originally an Italian noun derived from the Latin word for deity; in other words, a diva is a goddess. Ralph also says that the word is an acronym for Divinely Inspired Victoriously Anointed.

A diva, says Ralph, “copies no one. She is her own woman.”

Ralph became a diva through a lifetime of observing strong women. Her mother, a Jamaican immigrant, worked in a hospital to pay for her ticket to America. Ralph’s grandmother, a North Carolina belle, was headstrong and fearless enough to tussle with the burglars who killed her husband.

Divas, you see, know that risks are to be seized.

At 16, Ralph took on a big risk when she went to Rutgers University.

She had initially considered going to medical school, but she hated dissecting. She switched to law school, but it was “boring.” Then Ralph stumbled into drama auditions, tried out for a play, and found her niche.

When a Diva discovers what she’s meant to do, Ralph says, she knows it.

After working with the Defense Department, she landed in Hollywood and the movies, but Broadway was her first love. Good Diva that she is, she tackled every opportunity, which eventually gained her a part as one of the original Dreamgirls in the stage show. She ultimately quit the show, went back to Hollywood, and enjoyed more fame on television.

Today, Ralph still acts because Divas know “yes” can be satisfying. She also works with the Diva Foundation, an organization that focuses on HIV/AIDS awareness and testing. She does it to memorialize her friends and because, she says, a “real Diva counts… her blessings.”

I wasn’t sure what to expect when “Redefining Diva” crossed my desk. Is it a memoir? Or is it meant to inspire?

The answer to that is, delightfully, both.

Author Sheryl Lee Ralph weaves a lot of advice into this biography, giving readers plenty of takeaways while she shares tales of family, fame and folly.

And that’s what makes this book so enjoyable: Ralph imparts life lessons in between star-studded gossip and her own experiences, on-stage and off. Advisements are wrapped inside anecdotes, which somehow make them more memorable and definitely more fun to read.

I liked this book, and I think you will, too. Read “Redefining Diva” for the advice. Read it for the biography. Either way, this’ll be a book you’ll want.

Related Topics:Redefining Diva Sheryl Lee Ralph

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Theater

‘Feeling Afraid’ explores life of a neurotic stand-up comic

Navigating sex, work, and possibly love in London

Published

1 day ago

June 20, 2026

Patrick Folliard

Steven Webb in ‘Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen’ (Photo by DJ Corey)

‘Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going to Happen’
Through July 12
Studio Theatre
1501 14th St., N.W.
$55-$102
Studiotheatre.org

Wordily yet rightly titled, solo show “Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen” dives deeply into the world of a neurotic stand-up comic as he navigates sex, work, and possibly love in London.

Busy arranging hookups and dates on “The App,” the 36-year-old gay funnyman juggles a full dance card; still he’s never been in a romantic relationship. While he’s willing to give love a shot, he’s not pressed about it. As he says, he harbors no fear of dying alone.

Currently making its American premiere at Studio Theatre, this darkly humorous Edinburgh Fringe import features terrific out English actor Steven Webb as The Comedian who’s about to explore what it means to spend all his time with one man.

At Studio’s intimate Mead Theatre, Kat Heath’s minimal set says standard comedy club (fluorescent tube lighting, the mic with a long cord, a single stool backed by a rose-colored curtain), but gay playwright Marcelo Dos Santos has conjured something much more than a live comedy set.

Yes, The Comedian bounces onstage in his red Converse high tops, jeans, and pink shirt with a huge mouth emblazoned on the back, but he delivers more than jokes. At times hilariously self-deprecating, then dark, and occasionally a lesson on what makes standup work, this is a layered, well-acted piece.

With Webb (a keen caricaturist of types and voices) playing all the parts while conducting The Comedian’s hilariously frenetic interior monologue, “Feeling Afraid” takes us through a summer of love. It seems after six chaste dates with The American, our nervous hero has found Mr. Right. The American is earnest, smart, hesitant to initiate sex. He’s also well built with a beautiful smile. And strangely, he’s been medically advised not to laugh aloud.

The Comedian delights in the joys of new love: dates, first kisses, sex, and then suddenly spending all of his time with the adored. Visits to art galleries become fun. Eating home cooked meals followed by grim documentaries is a thing. The Comedian is beguiled as his own boyish figure fills out, but something isn’t right. He can’t entirely relax.

Along the way we meet the Aussie doctor, our protagonist’s longtime hookup; a young runner with some exceptional body parts; the random third in a failed threesome; grumpy working comics, male and female; and an ineffectual counselor.

Webb gives a lightning-fast performance that boggles the mind (in terms velocity and virtuosity). He can be impish, very impish. He’s nervous energy incarnate, flashing jazz hands, grimacing but handsome when still. He’s likeable, a necessity when delivering a hilariously rude joke just feet away from two stone-faced audience members. (Perhaps they were laughing on the inside? At any rate, they stayed through the end the show.)

Produced by the team behind Fringe hits “Fleabag” and “Baby Reindeer,” small stage works that were developed into major TV screen successes, “Feeling Afraid” is funny for sure, and it’s also highly confessional, sexually explicit, and raw.

Written by Dos Santos during COVID lockdown, the piece was a smash hit in the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe before finding further success in London. Its depiction of a youngish queer guy navigating the big city rings entirely true. Like so much Fringe stuff, the one-man show is delightfully lewd and standup inspired.

One little moan: the show closes cleverly but too abruptly with its star dashing offstage without sufficiently basking in the admiration and applause of his thoroughly chuffed audience.

They say third time’s a charm, and regarding “Feeling Afraid,” I’d agree. After two performance cancellations (first for laryngitis and the second involving faulty air conditioning on an especially muggy June evening), I made my third trek to Studio where I found both the actor and AC in very fine fettle. And truly, Webb’s work was more than worth the wait.