The prospect of singing to 8,000 spectators in Pauley Pavilion would be terrifying for any UCLA student. But for ’40s vixen Ruby Lee, this kind of thing is old hat.
Third-year theater student Halle Charlton and her alter ego Ruby Lee will perform “I Owe You Nothing” at Spring Sing. She wrote the song on piano over a span of three months. This is Charlton’s second consecutive year performing a solo.
Charlton said most of her songs are autobiographical, but “I Owe You Nothing” was inspired by a conversation with a friend. The song is about a boy who asks a girl he was hooking up with to give their relationship another shot.
“She was second to him, when he had other girls,” Charlton said. “The phrase ‘I owe you nothing’ came up, so I took it and ran.”
Last year’s performance was Charlton’s first big music gig. She signed up to prove to herself that she could do it.
“A week before, I was sobbing. I went to my mom’s house and broke down,” Charlton said.
She said that was the first time in her life that she experienced crippling stage fright. So 30 minutes before going onstage, she created Ruby Lee.
“I was trying to figure out things to distract myself, until finally asked, ‘What does Beyoncé do?’ And I created my own alter ego.”
Ruby Lee is an amalgamation of Katharine Hepburn, Grace Kelly and other ’40s stars. Charlton said playing Ruby Lee helped distance her from her music, allowing her to focus on the performance.
“For acting, you’re playing a character. I had to approach music in the same way, because I was making my performance so unbelievably personal that it overwhelmed me,” she said.
Charlton said inhabiting a character makes performing music feel safer.
“Music is terrifying to me,” she said. “It’s a whole other level of being vulnerable. It’s your own words, your own feelings and thoughts, your own story. Plus, you have to perform it.”
Charlton said music and acting are her primary driving forces. Her audition for UCLA’s theater program was overseen by April Shawhan, an associate professor of theater and Halle’s acting teacher for the fall and winter quarters of this school year.
“I think Halle is an old soul,” Shawhan said. “She has an understanding of people, both fictional and real life. She is very observant and is able to inhabit characters.”
Charlton’s affinity to music began early. She started playing piano when she was 6 years old. In sixth grade, an experience of unrequited love inspired her first song, a piano ballad called “Beautiful Boy.” She still remembers the words, albeit reluctantly, to the heartbreaking ode – “Beautiful boy, where did you go, lost you so, how could you.”
She wrote consistently throughout high school, even trying her hand at writing a musical.
“Funnily enough, ‘Beautiful Boy’ was more of my sound now,” Charlton said. “In high school, I went really musical theater and then I rounded back to R&B.”
She describes her genre as a hybrid of Motown-inspired music, pop and retro R&B. Fellow third-year theater student Sarah Miller-Crews says Charlton’s musical performances parallels her passionate personality.
“She has such a large personality and she has a large presence when she’s performing. No matter how many people are in the room, you feel like she’s singing to you,” Miller-Crews said.
Charlton said she remembers the first 15 seconds of last year’s solo, and the rest is a blur. But the reaction of the crowd was a vote of confidence that will make this year’s performance a little easier.
“I’m less stressed out this year,” Charlton said. “I know what to expect, I have enough faith in myself, and I have Ruby Lee in my back pocket.”