“All the World’s a Stage.” Centuries after Shakespeare penned his famous metaphorical quote in a famous monologue in As You Like It (1599), veteran performer, producer/impresario and all around manic expressive Lloyd Coleman continues to make sure we’ll never forget its timeless truth. From his childhood days singing in Taiwan and Hong Kong with his sister Leigh as The Coleman Kids, through his 80s’ heyday as impresario/co-producer of all-star music and comedy shows at Studio One (which also became America’s first gay disco) to his current SRO duet performances with his old pal Ricky Comeaux, Lloyd’s world is one where the lights are always beckoning, the stage is always calling and he’s continuously waiting in the wings to wow the world anew.

Lloyd is one of the producers of “Studio One Forever,” an upcoming feature documentary (aiming for a 2023 Sundance debut) starring Chita Rivera, Bruce Vilanch leading a cast of dynamic celebrity interviews, including a cameo by Lance Bass. It’s a vital film that chronicles the history of the venue including the magical era from 1984-89, when he and his partner Gary Steinberg – under the aegis of their company Rocket Entertainment – cultivated an uber-creative environment of open mic nights at the Studio One Backlot that produced future singing and standup superstars, pre-stardom (Roseanne Barr, Rosie O’Donnell, Tommy Davidson, Wayland Flowers & Madame et al) and famous and rising singers like Sylvester, Freda Payne, Roslyn Kind, Thelma Houston and Sam Harris to work their magic. Rocket Entertainment also produced the first show ever headlined by Elizabeth Taylor to benefit her AIDS charity. Relocating to Carlos & Charlie’s EL PRIVADO CLUB on the legendary Sunset Strip in 1988, Lloyd and Gary continued to produce legendary music and comedy showcases into the early 90s.

“You could hear a pin drop when our singing artists were onstage performing at our shows,” Lloyd says, “but between the sets, the audience would be cheering and laughing wildly. We wanted nothing more than having patrons leave feeling hugely uplifted, and we provided happy experiences for everyone, as we were dealing with mass fear and hysteria brought on by the HIV-AIDS crisis. We modeled the shows after ‘The Tonight Show’ and we wore tuxes. We brought some of the great music and TV celebs of the time to host the open mics – Charles Nelson Reilly, Scherrie Payne, Scott Bakula, Barry Williams, Sally Struthers, Ralna English, Doris Roberts…even Angelyne! It was our concept that having celebrities there would be the draw to introduce new talent to the world. There was no internet to grab talent from, so even hit talent discovery shows like ‘Star Search’ looked to our pool of performers. From the Backlot shows, we even developed a show intended for early Cable TV called “Ladies of the Night (Club),’ with Estelle Reiner, Roslyn Kind, Freda Payne, Candi Milo and Jo Anne Dearing, directed by Ruth Buzzi.”.

Producing the documentary film about Studio One makes great sense, but clearly, Lloyd’s freewheeling, multi-faceted life also lends itself as perfect fodder (hopefully one day soon) for a doc of his own. Directing the impressionistic, quick cut intro montage would be a blast. We could see him appearing with his sister Leigh on a nationally televised international talent competition in Taiwan. A snapshot or two of the two talented youngsters regaling crowds at the famous GO-DOWN Bistro in Hong Kong. Skipping ahead, there’s Lloyd, then a student at BYU, winning a songwriting competition and performing his original song before 75,000 at the Centennial Homecoming at the Marriott Center in Provo.

Oh, and then we can mix in shots of him in the mid ‘70s touring as the only freshman to take the one open, highly coveted male vocalist spot in the world-famous ensemble The Young Ambassadors, a variety show that toured the world, recorded several albums, and performed shows in 10,000-seat stadiums and arenas. Lloyd says it was the strict daily regimen of vocal and choreography rehearsals and weekly arena performances all while being required to maintain a 3.65 GPA that imparted the discipline required to pursue a career in show business. It also was the foundation for him to take on the job as the very 1st Cruise Director and principal Entertainer aboard the MS Goddess, the first-ever international tourist cruise ship on the Yangtze River, built in 1979, and ran with a 14 month-long contract. He got the job over thousands of other applicants, not only because he could sing, but because he also speaks fluent Mandarin.

Quick cut to the Carlos & Charlie’s era, where – while the shows were still happening – he decides to takes a sabbatical to Hawaii and ends up performing his own piano show at the Inn on the Park’s famous Balcony Bar for two years before moving his nightly show to Huggo’s of Kona, then joining the Aloha Theatre’s cast of “Chicago” and – drumroll – touring the islands (and cruising around them countless times) as lead singer of the jazz and rock band “Mainland”. Maybe there’s an image or two of Lloyd as a radio personality he became and producing commercial jingles for KLUA in Kona.

The photo montage introducing our fantasy documentary could also include shots of him in his hometown of Phoenix, first writing jingles for Studio A, not long after college, then helping make it a swinging city by supervising the opening of Paris After Dark, a cabaret showroom that started out featuring top dance artists CeCe Peniston and Crystal Waters before evolving into a Moulin Rouge atmosphere chock full of exotic drag queens. As a whole, the montage would give off the impression that whether performing or producing shows for others, Lloyd is always balancing mainstream fare with fascinating shock value entertainment on the cutting edge.

That wild montage would then give way to an extended sequence about the immense joy Lloyd is feeling in his life right now, sharing the joys of pop music of different eras in a unique way with his longtime friend, musical soulmate, legendary Houston entertainer and recording artist Ricky Comeaux. In mid-April 2022, Lloyd & Ricky performed their world premiere concert at Ovations in Houston – the same venue where Ricky first held court in the 80s with his longtime singing partner Jerry Atwood (as Atwood & Comeaux) and where Ricky led his popular band Euphoric Heat. They drew a packed house for two nights and received numerous standing ovations.

The duo puts together songs that are not mere covers but completely re-imagined versions of mostly well known (but a few obscure) tunes that were not written as duets, so no one had ever heard them performed like this before. Drawing from the realms of classic rock, anthemic pop and Broadway with a few originals for good measure, Lloyd & Ricky’s colorful and expansive repertoire includes tunes popularized by Josh Groban (“Brave,” “Granted”), Calum Scott (“Rise,” “You Are The Reason”), Five for Fighting (“100 Years”), Jason Mraz (“I Won’t Give Up”), Billy Joel (“Summer Highland Falls”), Madonna (“You Must Love Me”), Dan+Shea+Justin Bieber (“10,000 Hours”) and many others. Another highlight of their set is their twist on the intense alt rock version of “Sound of Silence” by Disturbed. The show is arranged and conducted by Musical Director Mitch Kaplan and features the Keith Vivens Trio.

Marisa Tomeo of Broadway World wrote: “The duo delivers with a new, sometimes haunting, always emotionally charged, unique sound and a universal appeal that taps into that sweet spot in the pop marketplace where greats like Josh Groban, Bocelli, Lloyd-Webber and IL Divo currently reign.”

“Ricky and I have both been around a while, but our voices are not those of two old guys,” Lloyd muses. “They’re literally bipolar, with Ricky’s tones being high and operatic and me delivering the low, gravelly soul. We owe a debt to groups like IL Divo who take familiar material and put their own spin on it. The idea is to take songs we love and create our own sound, and everything flows very naturally with us. I’ve tried all my life to create unique vibes as a performer, and sometimes it worked, but often it didn’t. When Ricky and I choose a song for our repertoire, we approach it differently, always with unexpected harmony and emotional power.  Often, I will hear the harmonies over his lead, and sometimes its vice versa. In the end, our voices are weaving in and out of the harmony and melody and everything emerges organically-it comes from the passion we have within. It’s like we’re always in the lab creating.”

“I think one of the other keys to making this work is that after years of performing on our own in so many different settings and situations, when we began working on this, we started finding our true musical selves,” he adds. “We’re singing love stories and songs about fighting stigmas, both concepts close to our hearts. It’s like we completely get each other’s motivation for doing this and how we want to deliver the music. I’ve been successful over the years with many different endeavors as a performer and producer but have never experienced the kind of feedback we’re getting from what we are doing now. Every time we practice, all we are thinking about is communicating to the audience and how they will react. And one of the best things about this story, is that my ex-partner, extremely creative and talented and life-long friend Gary Steinberg is directing our show.  What more could any performer ask for?”

The fantasy Lloyd doc would then dig into a fanciful segment covering the duo’s superhero origin story. Lloyd & Ricky sing together like they’ve been doing it all their lives and their on- and offstage camaraderie might make folks think they’ve been the best of pals for the 35 years or so since they first met. But in actuality, from the time they first connected until they found each other again via social media, there was a several decade gap – which they closed quickly, of course, sensing they had a lot of lost time to make up for.

Back in 1986, at the height of the star studded, celebrity filled Studio One Backlot craze in L.A., RSVP Cruises – impressed with the venue’s growing gay clientele and their management of stars within that community - contacted Lloyd and Gary Steinberg about securing talent for and producing shows for the world’s very first all-gay chartered cruise. The lineup included Wayland Flowers & Madame and a host of entertainers from Los Angeles and Houston.

Some entertainment venue investors from Houston who were on the cruise, impressed by the cruise’s entertainment, offered Lloyd and Gary the opportunity to build and open a new showroom there. Lloyd’s job was to recruit local talent, and he knew the minute he saw and heard Ricky Comeaux and Jerry Atwood, they would be performing at the new venue. Ultimately, the venture didn’t work out, but Lloyd hit it off with Ricky and invited the two to California not only to play in L.A. at the Studio One Backlot, but also other clubs he and Steinberg were working with, including hotspots in Long Beach. “The upshot of all this was meeting Ricky,” Lloyd says. “He was a funny guy, super talented, and we were friendly with each other. I was able to hire and promote him and Jerry. But it was all business in those days, and we never cultured a best friend relationship like we have now.”  

As showbiz connections often go, Lloyd and Ricky lost touch for many years – and Lloyd left the career in entertainment briefly to fly the friendly skies as a Flight Attendant-mostly to see the places in the world he had not yet visited. That then led to working in corporate travel management and marketing, for a number of years, serving as director of marketing producing Travel shows for various airlines and Tourism bureaus. His travels and productions were taking him everywhere from convention centers in Vegas to London, and he also created road shows for exclusive high end Tourism and Travel  shows for tour operators.

When Lloyd and Ricky began communicating again with the advent of Facebook, Lloyd and Ricky struck up some fascinating messaging conversations about music – which extended into an informal dual partnership on a popular digital singing app called Sing Snap, billed as the world’s largest online singing community – with hundreds of thousands of users.

“It’s public singing platform that provides singers with thousands of arrangements to sing with, and allows you to break out into rooms of singers,” Lloyd says. “When Ricky and I started talking again, I was in producing mode, not doing much in the way of singing or performing – so I thought singing with him via the app would be a way to keep my vocal muscles strong and in shape. So starting with a Josh Groban song, we began duetting online and received instantaneous positive feedback. Everything we have created evolved as it was meant to from there.”

When Lloyd and Ricky finally got together to turn their social media chemistry into real life showroom gold, they discovered another unique connection that may explain their always upbeat attitudes and the full-on embrace of life and music that happens when they’re sharing the stage. Both are cancer survivors – Lloyd being diagnosed with intestinal cancer and Ricky with a form of skin cancer caused by leukemia.

The two were in contact when Coleman, who was first diagnosed with in 2007 and had gone through years of chemo and radiation, had major surgery to remove a tumor. He was Stage 4 and given a diagnosis with a five percent survival rate. “At one point, I was told by my medical team of Doctors to prepare my goodbyes,” Lloyd said, “but I always sensed that there was something much more to be done in my life and that wasn’t going to be the time. I made peace with it, but something inside me refused to accept it.” Both are currently feeling very healthy and excited about all the living and singing there is yet to do.”

An important final segment of the Lloyd doc would be a short run through about where his musical passion came from and how it was cultivated. His dad was CIA, but when the family lived in Cody WY, he also owned the Coleman Music and Piano store. He was also a non-pro singer and played Hammond organ in the house. Lloyd’s mother was an up and coming singer and choir girl who worked briefly in Hollywood in the 50s.

Lloyd’s sister Leigh picked up the guitar first, but when she put it down, Lloyd grabbed onto it and taught himself how to play. The Coleman Kids got started when they were a close-knit American family, living in an Asian world, so they entertained themselves playing music together. He and Leigh went to American schools, where they performed onstage, with her singing and him playing guitar. When they won the Taiwan TV talent competition ”Aspala ”, its prize of $500 felt like a million to them – and they enjoyed the recognition around the city of Taipei, where they became instant young celebrities. As Lloyd and Leigh continued their childhood career, with their mom and dad acting as stage parents, their dad had dreams of leaving the CIA, moving to Los Angeles and getting them on “The Andy Williams Show” after seeing the Osmond Brothers.

“It always felt natural for me, and I was always ready to perform,” says Lloyd. “I learned from an early age that entertaining people moves them emotionally. But as with any type of entertainment career, I learned quickly that singers must also become masters of self-promotion, especially early on. Without a doubt, I have learned the value of patience and discipline. Professional singers need discipline, perseverance, a great deal of practice and many other skills – in addition to luck – to succeed.

“Perseverance is another very necessary skill for a singer because there are always many aspirants but relatively few gigs,” he adds. “For all the successes I have enjoyed, I have gone to many auditions and faced rejection more than acceptance. Once I understood that the rejection was not personal, I was no longer tortured by it.  I also learned that having physical stamina helps a singer through repeated rehearsals, the often-extensive travel, and those long performances late into the night.”