The Treat: Cynthia Erivo
The Treatment
KCRW
4.6 • 656 Ratings
🗓️ 18 May 2026
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Grammy, Emmy, and Tony-winning actress and singer Cynthia Erivo continues to conquer stage and screen. She stepped back into Elphaba’s shoes (and cape and hat) in the blockbuster musical 'Wicked: For Good' last year. Now, she’s finishing up a run in a one-woman adaptation of 'Dracula' in London’s West End. For her treat, she celebrates Nina Simone’s iconic take of the song “I’m Feeling Good.” Erivo cites the “color” and imperfections of Simone’s singing as inspiration for her own version of the song, which, she says, teaches her something new every time she sings it.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to The Treat. I'm Elvis Mitchell. |
| 0:02.8 | Cynthia Arrivo has drawn us to her work as an actor, songwriter, and singer, and won numerous awards in their process. |
| 0:10.2 | She is drawn to the compelling spell that's an unusual blend of song and performer. |
| 0:15.7 | I'm Cynthia Arrivo, and this is the treat. |
| 0:18.9 | It's a new dawn. It's a new dawn, it's a new day. |
| 0:23.6 | It's a new life for me, yeah, it's a new dawn. |
| 0:27.6 | I think a thing that has had a huge impact on me, |
| 0:31.6 | I'm going to pick a song. |
| 0:33.6 | It's Feeling Good by Nina Simone, or her version of it. |
| 0:54.0 | First time I heard it, I want to say I was 14. |
| 0:59.4 | I might have heard it in my mum's car on the way to school or something. |
| 1:06.6 | I don't know how to describe it because it's a physical feeling that sort of like reverberates a little bit. |
| 1:09.9 | And one of my thoughts was like, I want to be able to do that. |
| 1:11.2 | I want to do that. I want to do that. |
| 1:12.8 | How does she do that? |
| 1:17.2 | Because there's like a, it's like a color in it. |
| 1:19.4 | It's like ink in it. |
| 1:22.7 | Dragon fly out in the sun. |
| 1:24.8 | You know what I mean, don't you know? |
| 1:29.4 | Butterfly is all having fun. You know what I mean, don't you know? Butterfly is all having fun. |
| 1:31.4 | You know what I mean. |
| 1:41.0 | The wonderful, magnificent thing about Nina Simone is actually the imperfection with which she sings, |
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