I can't tell you the thrill and joy of when I was cast in my first Broadway show. Granted, it was 'Starlight Express' and it was exhausting, but it was my first time on Broadway, and there was nothing like it.
When I was 20 years old, my mom flew me for my first Broadway audition for 'The Color Purple,' and I only found out about it because I knew that Fantasia was in it, and so I went online to ActorsEquity.com. I was not a part of the union, but I flew there for the audition, and the next week I made my Broadway debut!
I got to Broadway a year after I came to New York. I starred in 'Butterflies Are Free' and got a Tony for it. Right out of the gate. Maybe that's why I wasn't very gracious about it. I wasn't driven. And right after 'Butterflies Are Free', I got married and then started a family. I always wanted that.
I'm making my Broadway musical debut at the age of 73 - it's a kind of interesting career arc.
When I did 'Thoroughly Modern Millie,' it was almost every 'first' I could have imagined: I dreamt someday being on Broadway, and then dreamt someday playing a lead on Broadway, and then dreamt someday of getting to originate a role, and then getting a Tony nomination. It all happened at once. I was just terrified.
Performing on Broadway is an honor and a challenge for any artist.
I had already played a lead on Broadway before I ever did a film. I had had three, four seasons of stock with good, fat parts, good supporting and leading parts. And I had done, oh, God, over 400 live TV shows.
'Bonnie and Clyde' was the first show and the first role that I got to originate. Being part of that from the ground up and investing three years of my life into seeing that show come to Broadway was really rigorous but also so exciting.
When I was prepping for my Broadway debut as Romeo, it really hit me that I had never done that. I had trained at drama school for three years in my late teens to early 20s, and I'd studied Shakespeare, of course, but I hadn't actually performed it. So to do something like Romeo for my first Broadway role was a challenge.
'Grease' was my Broadway debut. That was eye-opening. At the same time, it was very familiar. It was a Broadway show, but it's kind of the same as doing a show in Minnesota. It's the same type of rehearsal process. You are doing 8 shows a week, but I worked at a theatre in Minnesota that did 11 shows a week.
I would love to be on Broadway. I would love to do a three-month run, similar to how celebrities do a three-month run on 'Chicago.' Something like that would be awesome. So, I'm putting it out there.
My first big show in Denver was 'Ruthless! The Musical.' I played Tina Denmark at the Theatre on Broadway. It was my big break!
I have to say, speaking from experience, just because an actor starts out in a role in the workshop, they won't necessarily play it when it goes to Broadway.
I'm very proud of my New York debut. I played Oscar Wilde in 'Gross Indecency' off Broadway in about 1997. And I was very proud of my Broadway debut in 'The Iceman Cometh.'
I struggled for a while, but when I was cast in an Off Broadway show called 'Once Upon a Mattress,' that kind of put me on the map.
A lot of people now don't know I've been on Broadway.
When I moved to New York out of college, that was my goal. To be a stage actress. And to do dramatic works. Like 'Madea', and 'Night, Mother', and 'Sam Shepard', and all that kind of stuff. That's what I really wanted to do.
Acting, I started when I was six and a half years-old, on Broadway with Kurt Weill.
The first big lead that I had on Broadway was in a show called La Strada.
Yes, I am a failed playwright. I had three shows on Broadway by the time I was 30. They all flopped, and I fled.
Cinderella is making her Broadway debut. It's an honor to step into that position and, in that way, I am creating a role because it's never been done on Broadway. I feel so honored.
I got my Equity Card with my Broadway debut when I did 'Rent.' I was in high school, and I came to New York to do that show.
I made my Broadway debut in the revival of Hair and followed it up with the bus and truck tour of Grease.
If you'd ever told me that my Broadway debut would be playing Spider-Man, I would have laughed in your face.
So did my time on Broadway after the Xscape tour doing 'Chicago'. Performing eight times a week put in the mindset of being onstage again.
