Playbill Posts New Clay Aiken Article

Playbill has a new Clay article up, talking about Clay in Spamalot and his new CD, due for release on May 6.

It Takes Two

By Andrew Gans
March 15, 2008

Two time's the charm for "American Idol" runner-up and Spamalot star Clay Aiken.


Two may be Clay Aiken's lucky number. After all, the former "American Idol" contestant placed second during the second season of the hit Fox TV series, and that runner-up status has not affected his career in the least. In fact, he has long outsold that season's "Idol" winner, the affable, velvet-voiced Ruben Studdard.

[...]

In Spamalot Aiken has assumed the roles of Sir Robin, Guard and Brother Maynard, which were created by Curtains Tony winner David Hyde Pierce but most recently played by Broadway veteran Martin Moran. And, it turns out that Moran was one of Aiken's earliest inspirations. "When I was in seventh grade, my mom took me to see Big River. It was the very first time that I looked onstage and I thought, 'Wait a second, people can make a living singing!' That kind of excited me — it was the first time I really thought to myself, 'Maybe this is what I'd like to do, something with music.' Ironically, the person who played Huck Finn in that production of Big River was a guy named Marty Moran."

[...]

Although he does get the chance to display his beautiful, rangy, crystal-clear voice in a few numbers, Spamalot doesn't offer the gifted tenor as much opportunity for vocal acrobatics as several other Broadway musicals might. "We had other shows approach us," Aiken says, ". . . but the reason we were interested in Spamalot was it was completely different than anything I had done in the past, and it was something that I don't think people would have expected me to be interested in. That was kind of a draw, the fact that it was opposite of typical Clay Aiken stuff."