Theatre Interviews with Top Broadway Stars

Jinkx Monsoon on playing a woman in a man's world in 'Chicago'

The category is: Broadway. From January 16, two-time RuPaul's Drag Race champion Jinkx Monsoon is trading Rusicals for musicals to make her Broadway debut in Chicago through March 12. But the theatre scene isn't new to Monsoon. She holds a BFA in theatre from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, and she's performed in multiple major musicals in that same city. Hairspray, Rent, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Spring Awakening are just a few of her high-profile musical credits (aside from her...

Marla Mindelle on celebrating Celine Dion in 'Titanique'

"Love can touch us one time, and last for a lifetime," sings Celine Dion in "My Heart Will Go On." Marla Mindelle knows how true that is. She's been a Dion fan "as long as she's] been living," and as a teenager, the actress would spend countless hours "trying to belt 'All by Myself' in [her] bedroom over and over and over again." Now she's channeling her love for the singer in [Titanique, a revisionist parody version of James Cameron's Titanic film. Mindelle stars as a goofy, scene-stealing...

Danny Burstein on playing a photographer in 'Pictures From Home' on Broadway

Danny Burstein is back on Broadway for the first time since winning a Best Featured Actor Tony Award for Moulin Rouge! The Musical. His latest role, as the influential photographer Larry Sultan in Pictures From Home, marks a triple reunion for the actor. One reunion is with the playwright Sharr White, who wrote The Snow Geese, a 2013 Chekhov-style story Burstein co-starred in. Pictures From Home is also “emotionally loaded,” said White, “so Danny is a great choice.” Another is with Bartlett...

Sierra Boggess reflects on the staying power of 'The Phantom of the Opera'

"It's hard to think of living in a world where Phantom isn't playing at the Majestic Theatre." So said Broadway actress Sierra Boggess soon after The Phantom of the Opera, the longest-running show in Broadway history, announced its closing after 35 years. Her sentiment isn't unique. The closing news immediately multiplied ticket demand from die-hard "phans" and casual theatregoers alike — those who assumed Phantom would always be around and now have a deadline to check it off their bucket lists....

'Take Me Out' rookie Bill Heck on joining the Broadway team of the hit revival

Batter up! The Tony Award-winning revival of Richard Greenberg’s thrilling baseball dramedy, Take Me Out, is back on Broadway for an encore run through February 5 with a key change in the lineup. Cabaret alum Bill Heck deftly slides into the role of shortstop Kippy Sunderstrom, aka “the most intelligent man in major league baseball.” Kippy narrates the play and interacts with other teammates including Darren Lemming (Jesse Williams), who throws a game-changing curveball when he announces to the...

Audra McDonald on returning to Broadway in ‘Ohio State Murders’

When Audra McDonald read Adrienne Kennedy’s Ohio State Murders for the first time, her “gut was on the floor.” The six-time Tony-winning actress participated in a Zoom pandemic production of Kennedy’s seminal work, based on her own experience at the university, and she was stunned by the material. “My heart was on the floor. My brain was exploding,” McDonald says of the experience. “For days afterwards, I just kept thinking about the fact that I got to say those words. And I wanted to know more...

Casey Likes on living out his character's life in 'Almost Famous' on Broadway

Casey Likes is almost famous. That's thanks to Almost Famous. The 20-year-old actor is taking on Patrick Fugit's role, of wide-eyed journalist William Miller, in the musical adaptation of Cameron Crowe's cult classic film about the '70s rock scene. And as if making his Broadway debut in a buzzy new musical wasn't enough, Likes is about to hit the big screen as Gene Simmons of KISS in the biopic Spinning Gold. Clearly, he's on a rock kick. Likes has been with Almost Famous since 2019, when...

Elyssa Samsel and Kate Anderson on the whimsical music of 'Between the Lines'

Romantic. Quirky. Dreamlike. Fun. That describes Elyssa Samsel and Kate Anderson's signature songwriting style. The composer-lyricist duo are behind the animated musical comedies Olaf's Frozen Adventure, Central Park on AppleTV+, and now, the Off-Broadway fairytale musical Between the Lines, based on bestselling author Jodi Picoult and her daughter Samantha van Leer's novel. They've become the team to call for whimsical earworms you'd bust out at a Disney-inspired karaoke night.Samsel and...

'Cost of Living' star Katy Sullivan on changing representation on stage

Martyna Majok's play Cost of Living premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts in 2016, opened Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2017, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2018, and played in London in 2019. Now, the show will make its Broadway debut, also with MTC, this fall. Only two people have been involved in all those productions: Majok, of course, and Katy Sullivan.In Cost of Living, the stories of the disabled, the working-class, immigrants, and more converge with four...

Julie Benko on being ‘Funny Girl’'s new greatest star

Before starring as Jewish comedian Fanny Brice in Funny Girl on Broadway, Julie Benko had never seen the iconic 1968 film. Yes, she knows that's hard to believe. "I don't know how that happened, that a Jewish musical theatre girl didn't see Funny Girl growing up," she says, with self-deprecating charm. "I watched the movie after I found out I got a callback. So I've seen the movie once."It's well-known musical theatre lore that Funny Girl (created by Jule Styne, Bob Merrill, and Isobel Lennart)...