HIGH PROFILE: Singer returns to Arkansas for benefit concert

In the 1970s, she found her calling as an actor, dancer and singer on the Children’s Theatre stage at the Arkansas Arts Center. Her career path led to New York, Los Angeles and beyond.

‘I get to sing in the city and come back out and go on hikes in the hills. I’m incredibly lucky. I’m an incredibly fortunate person.’
‘I get to sing in the city and come back out and go on hikes in the hills. I’m incredibly lucky. I’m an incredibly fortunate person.’

Leslie Darwin acted, sang and danced as part of the original Arkansas Arts Center Children’s Theatre company in the 1970s, when director Rand Hopkins was creating theatrical productions for youngsters, by youngsters.

Now Leslie Darwin O’Brien, she lives east of San Francisco. She doesn’t dance so much, but she still acts a little and sings a lot.

She recently toured Cuba as part of the Havana Jazz Festival, in conjunction with her other “job”: chairman of the board of Terry’s Kids, a nonprofit foundation that shares music with children worldwide. It’s the project of her music producer, Terry Miller.

And she’s coming home to Little Rock to headline “Latitude!: An Evening of Stories and Song,” a benefit for the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance and the Central Arkansas Library System, Dec. 7 at the Ron Robinson Theatre in Little Rock’s River Market District. The title draws a line of latitude from San Francisco (37 degrees, 46 minutes, 26 seconds north) to Little Rock (34 degrees, 44 minutes, 47 seconds north).

TALENTED COLLEAGUES

Her Children’s Theatre cast mates included Skip Lackey and George Newbern, both of whom went on to big and small screen careers, and Mary Stuart, a former Miss Arkansas. “I don’t think I was a charter member,” she recalls. “I was mainly a flower and a Christmas tree. So when any little kid says to me these days, ‘I didn’t get a very big part,’ I say, ‘Hey, I was a flower and a Christmas tree, and I wasn’t 4 — I was 14.’”

Her big breakthrough came as a seventh-grader playing Lady Macbeth and Katherine the shrew in I Will , a musical based on Shakespeare plays. It had two Little Rock runs and, between them, an East Coast tour.

“We toured New York, Washington, Philadelphia; we went to the National Theater Conference; we played Ford’s Theater. It was unbelievable that I got to do that as a child,” she says.

Her Children’s Theater gig lasted until her 1982 graduation from Central High. Meanwhile, her mother and a friend persuaded her to enter a pageant. “It was then America’s Junior Miss,” she says. “Now it’s called the Young Woman of the Year program.” It was and wasn’t a beauty pageant — “20 percent of it was based on your grades, 20 percent on the interview. I’m so not a bathing-suit kind of girl; I wasn’t then, certainly not now.”

To her surprise, “I ended up getting very lucky and winning the Arkansas thing. It was quite helpful. It gave me some extra money to go to college.” Placing well in the talent portion of the national competition increased the scholarship fund.

One of the judges was Del Boyette, principal and founder of Boyette Strategic Advisors, an economic planning consultancy, who has been a prominent fundraiser for the Arkansas Arts Center, among other organizations. In the ’90s he became the youngest (at the time) director of what was then the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission (since renamed the Arkansas Economic Development Commission).

“I know how to pick a winner,” he quips.

Boyette says O’Brien has had a major impact on his outlook on life: “She is the absolute most positive human being I think I have ever met,” he says. And when he complained to her about not having time enough to get things done, “she said to me, ‘You know, Del, you make time to do the things you really want to do.’ And I use that line all the time, 35 years later, because it is so true.”

WEST, THEN EAST

The scholarship money came in handy when O’Brien headed off to college in northern California. “Stanford is very expensive — even more now,” she says. She majored in communication, which at Stanford “they called a ‘Mickey Mouse major.’ But it worked out great, because I had, and still have, quite eclectic tastes. And you had to take classes through all sorts of disciplines for distribution requirements. My best class, strangely enough, was petroleum engineering.”

After college, she briefly worked as a stringer for Time magazine. “I graduated from Stanford early in an effort to save my parents money,” she says, “and I applied for internships at all the magazines out in San Francisco. They all said no, except this one that called me back. I thought it was because I was the senior class president and I was on the search committee to find a class speaker for our class and we had invited [former Soviet premier Mikhail] Gorbachev. But they were calling me to come in for an interview.”

She and a couple of Stanford classmates went to New York, “just to visit,” she says. “I auditioned for a play, and I ended up getting in it, so I decided to stay. I was there for three years. I got my union card playing Cinderella off-Broadway. And that was what I had been in third grade.”

She studied acting, first with Bill Alderson at the Neighborhood Playhouse and then with Alderson’s mentor, Sanford Meisner, whose students have also included Mary Steenbergen.

“I respect the Meisner system,” she says. “He taught me all about listening; it just helped me in so many ways, not just on the stage. I’m grateful for that time; those acting classes were harder for me than Stanford — they were all about telling the truth and not sugar-coating anything. I thrive on that authenticity.”

To pay for acting classes, she was a large yellow bird for children’s parties, a freezer-section demonstrator and a cater-waiter. “People were paying in taxes what I was making, but I had to at least pursue it,” she says. “I lived with my sister in a 12-by-20 studio apartment. We had a rule: We couldn’t go into the bathroom or the kitchen at the same time.”

O’Brien subsequently spent nine years in Los Angeles, “pursuing acting all that time — and failing.” (Her official biography lists this credit: “Featured as a screaming homeless woman in Barry Levinson’s Jimmy Hollywood.”)

She met her husband, Tim, in L.A. at a 1992 presidential campaign fundraiser. “I thought he was so wonderful, and he was teasing me so much — he’d gone to Cal, I went to Stanford” — the two schools have a fierce football rivalry — “but he could make me laugh so much. So I said, ‘I’m in.’” Even when she learned he was immediately moving to San Francisco.

They spent three years in Sacramento, “and had two babies; we had one baby in L.A. while we were there.” (Her three sons range in age from 15 to 20.) She was freelancing for PBS when she caught the attention of the Smithsonian Institution.

“We had this show called African-Americans in the Central Valley. I was transcribing a tape and there was a story of a woman who had been sold into slavery and moved from West Virginia to California, which was a free state. And she left behind a 3-year-old — and [it resonated because] I had a 3-year-old child. She worked as a laundress in the gold industry and she was able to buy her child back. I thought, ‘Holy smokes! What can I do to get those stories out there?’”

So she created a series of paper dolls, based on historical figures, that she called Heroes of the West: African Americans Who Helped Shape History, that made the rounds of area schools. “And this woman saw them, and they ended up being in the Smithsonian.”

Two years ago, she also started another project to help build a stronger sense of community and self-esteem in girls, which she calls “Girl Power: Message and Music.”

“The objective is to get away from the mean-girl scene,” she explains. “If we have a stronger sense of self, maybe we’ll be kinder to each other. And I incorporate music, because in Western culture, we don’t breathe deeply enough; if we’d breathe a little more deeply, we might be in touch a little more with how we really feel, and if we can come to terms with that, maybe we’d be kinder to the next person.”

The O’Briens now live in the East Bay town of Orinda, “right by Berkeley, [but] it’s actually really rural,” she says. “We have turkeys and deer in our yard. It’s a very sweet existence.” And it’s only a 20-minute ride via the Bay Area Rapid Transit system to central San Francisco, “so it’s really great — I get to sing in the city and come back out and go on hikes in the hills. I’m an incredibly fortunate person.”

REMAINING VOCAL

Nowadays, “I just sing, pretty much,” she says. “The nice thing about singing is that I can control the timing. I can record in the morning while my children are at school.”

Miller, in addition to being a noted producer, has had a distinguished career as a sideman, playing bass with the Zac Brown Band, The Doobie Brothers, Stan Getz, Michael McDonald and Steve Miller. Meeting him took her career to a new level.

He produced her 2015 debut album, Leslie, 10 songs, mostly show and movie tunes (including Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer’s “Moon River” and John Kander and Fred Ebb’s “A Quiet Thing”).

“That was a miracle,” O’Brien says. “When I crossed paths with Terry, seven years ago, I was the director of community life at this congregationalist church, chasing children — mine, mainly, but other people’s, too. And I was helping with summer music camps. He was my child’s piano teacher and I said to him, ‘I’m a 50-year-old woman, I just want to sing, can I take some voice lessons?’ And he said, ‘We should record.’ One thing led to another.”

Her association with Terry’s Kids has spurred three trips to Cuba. “Cuba is all about art and music, so to go down there with incredible American musicians and to sit in with the Cubans, and they sit in with us, it’s just so magical,” she says. “Last time I went down with this drummer, and he said, ‘I get a lot of work in L.A., and these 9-year-old kids are drumming circles around me.’ They’re so good, it’s just a part of who they are.”

O’Brien’s in-progress Christmas CD is a fundraiser for Miller’s foundation. Her Dec. 7 Little Rock show is raising money for something else.

“I’ve been doing these concerts in Cuba and in San Francisco, and I thought, ‘I would just love to sing for my parents and their peers while they are still healthy,’” she explains. “But I would [also] love to help Kathy Webb — she was my track coach when I was a kid, and even though I don’t live here, I hear about what she and her group do at the Hunger Relief Alliance.

“And the neat thing is that [the nonprofit and the library system] are working together — they have food drop-offs at the Hillary Clinton Children’s Library, which is [in a] food desert; they have this amazing garden there and they have cooking classes. There’s some empirical evidence that if you teach kids to cook, they’re more likely to eat more healthy stuff, and if they can grow it, that’s even better.”

“I think it was basketball,” not track, recalls coach Webb, who says among their lifelong connections, they attended the same Little Rock church. “She’s always been an incredibly talented singer and actor and she wanted to do something for her hometown.”

“She’s so wonderful and thoughtful and considerate — she’s going to come [home] at her own expense and perform,” Boyette adds.

He reconnected with O’Brien in San Francisco two summers ago, right after she had released her debut CD. “She was telling me about her reinvented musical career, and about her shows, and I said, ‘You need to do one of these in Little Rock.’ And she said, ‘Let’s make it happen.’ She mentioned the Hunger Relief Alliance, and I mentioned CALS, because I’m on the CALS Foundation board, and we just started putting it together.”

O’Brien is putting together the songs for the show; for the rest, Webb says, “We’ve had a wonderful committee that’s worked on the venue, program, tickets, all that kind of stuff — [CALS director] Nate Coulter and John Miller from the library, and my niece, Laura Coulter, who’s been a lifelong friend of Leslie’s.

“We’ve figured if we sell out, which I hope we’ll do, we should be able to bring in $30,000, split between the two organizations. It’ll be simply fantastic.”

O’Brien says beneficial work is just a part of who she is.

“Scripture teaches, ‘To whom much is given, much is expected,’” she says, “My objective is to comfort and bring people joy in music. So if I can sing and make some money for the Hunger Relief Alliance, well, that’s my job.”

“Latitude!: An Evening of Stories and Song,” a benefit for the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance and the Central Arkansas Library System, 7 p.m. Dec. 7 at the Ron Robinson Theatre, 100 River Market Ave., Little Rock. Tickets are $100. Call

SELF PORTRAIT

Leslie Darwin O’Brien

BIRTHDATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: Dec. 23, 1963, Little Rock

FAMILY: Tim O’Brien (married 1994); children: Charlie, 20; Eli, 18; and Matthew, 15

FAVORITE FOOD: Caesar salad and peanut M&Ms — not together.

THE MENU FOR MY LAST MEAL: Caesar salad and peanut M&Ms. Maybe abalone. My husband dives for that.

I ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT EAT: Sushi. I’m too provincial.

FAVORITE COLOR: Teal

I’M MOST COMFORTABLE WITH PEOPLE WHO … are authentic.

I LIKE TO WEAR: Sequins. Because the world is sad. And if I can make someone smile when I do that, that’s why I do it. My job is to lift people’s spirits.

I WOULD NEVER WEAR: A bikini.

FAVORITE MUSIC TO SING: The Great American Songbook, jazz, “popera,” inspirational

FAVORITE MUSIC TO LISTEN TO: It depends on the day, but I love Josh Groban. And then kids playing jazz in Cuba — it’s magical.

THE THING IN MY CAREER I’M PROUDEST OF: A lady I know who really looks at the world like the glass is not even half full, she’s the most depressed person, it’s so sad — and she said, “We came to hear you the other night and it was fabulous.” I felt so happy, I felt like I was back in New York. I also sing at people’s bedsides for hospice. I don’t know if proud is right, but that’s what moves me. I try to move people, different songs are going to touch people in different ways — I’m just the instrument.

THE THING I WISH I’D DONE BUT HAVEN’T YET: Taken my kids to Cuba.

THE GUESTS AT MY FANTASY DINNER PARTY: Maya Angelou, Wallace Stegner, Victor Hugo — my favorite quote is, “To love another person is to see the face of God,” from Les Miserables. Steve Martin. Mike Verbiglia. You have to find the humor in the world.

IF I’VE LEARNED ONE THING IN LIFE, IT’S: Every day is a gift.

PEOPLE WHO KNEW ME IN HIGH SCHOOL THOUGHT I WAS: Cheerful. I think.

I WANT MY KIDS TO REMEMBER: That I adore them. And that I come from a long line of love. It’s really about my parents [Gary and Beverly Darwin]. I’m trying to be a good daughter. They gave us so much love growing up. They made us feel so good about ourselves. I’m trying to pass that along to my sons.

THE BEST ADVICE I EVER RECEIVED: Don’t believe your own press.

I’M PASSIONATE ABOUT: Comforting people through music.

MY PET PEEVE ABOUT SOCIETY: I do not like disposable plastic bottles. We’re a disposable society. And it’s heartbreaking that so many Americans feel disenfranchised.

ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP: Incredibly fortunate.

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‘If we’d breathe a little more deeply, we might be in touch a little more with how we really feel, and if we can come to terms with that, maybe we’d be kinder to the next person.’

(501) 918-3030 or visit the website, centralarkansastickets.com .

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