INTERVIEW: Nikki Renée Daniels finds the funny in ‘Mattress’ musical
Photo: Once Upon a Mattress features Nikki Renée Daniels in the role of Lady Larken. Photo courtesy of the artist / Provided by Vivacity Media Group with permission.
Nikki Renée Daniels, who has appeared in Company, The Book of Mormon and Porgy and Bess, is back on Broadway in a funny fairytale journey where she plays the character of Lady Larken. That’s right, Daniels is currently appearing in Once Upon a Mattress at the Hudson Theatre. She is joined by Sutton Foster, Michael Urie, Brooks Ashmanskas, Daniel Breaker, Will Chase and Ana Gasteyer, among others.
The beloved show, featuring music by Mary Rodgers and lyrics by Marhsall Barer, has been a go-to musical for theater companies, college productions and high school productions. The accessible material plays on multiple levels, offering a hilarious romance story for the adults and a trip into fairytale land for the children. In the show, Princess Winnifred (Foster) seems out of place amongst the regal surroundings of Prince Dauntless (Urie) and Queen Aggravain (Gasteyer), so the princess is given the ultimate test: Can she sleep one night on a pile of mattresses and a single, solitary pea?
“We’re having as much fun as it seems like we are on stage,” Daniels said in a recent phone interview. “It’s just a bunch of old friends coming together to be silly and make music and have a good time.”
This production of the musical, which has been adapted by Amy Sherman-Palladino and directed by Lear deBessonet, began its life as part of the Encores! season at New York City Center. That run was so successful that a Broadway transfer was quickly announced, and after the Manhattan performances end in November, the production moves to Los Angeles.
“Actually I wasn’t that familiar with this show,” Daniels said. “Somehow, none of our principal cast had ever done the show before, which is crazy because everyone at the stage door is like, ‘Oh, I did it in high school.’ ‘I’m currently doing it in my middle school.’ Everyone seems to have history with this show, but as far as the principal cast and this version, none of us had done it before. So we kind of came to it with fresh eyes, and I read Mary Rodgers’ book that Jesse Green wrote, Shy, just to sort of get some context on her because I wasn’t as familiar with her music as I was her father’s and her son’s even. So it was really interesting to read about how this began at the adult summer camp. It was never meant to be a Broadway show, and then to have Amy Sherman-Palladino’s rewrites and updates to the script really brought it into laser focus for 2024 and made it that much more fun.”
Over the past couple of months, Daniels has noticed that the children in the audience are loving the humor. She reported that the kids, many of them no doubt experiencing their first Broadway show, are laughing at all the funny bits, but the adults are also having a blast.
“Obviously if you’re older, you get some of the more hidden humor in the show,” she said. “I have two daughters who are 11 and 7, and this was their first Broadway opening night that they came to. And it’s so nice to be in a show that I don’t have to worry if they’re not going to understand the themes or if it’s too adult for them. It really is enjoyable for all ages.”
The rehearsal process for this Broadway musical was unique and fast. The company had 10 days of prep time for the Encores! version, and then they tacked on another two weeks for the transfer to the Hudson Theatre. One challenge was that some of the principal cast changed from theater to theater.
“But luckily everyone is so funny, and they’re all pros,” Daniels said. “Everyone came with their lines learned and ready to just jump in and find the funny. … [The new cast members] were so able to bring their own humor to it and make the roles their own and still make it just as funny as it was at Encores!, so it was really interesting for me having been a part of the Encores! cast and the new cast to readjust and work with the new bits of comedy that I was given. It’s just been totally fun. Both processes were equally fun and extremely fast and furious. I think we did two weeks of rehearsals, and then we had four days of tech and then maybe nine previews before we opened. And then about three weeks after we opened, everyone was like, ‘OK, I’m ready to open now.’ We felt like we had all settled in much more than we were at the opening of the show. It’s been great all along the whole process, but we all feel really settled in and able to play even more within the confines of the script and find the funny.”
Daniels added: “I just did a Pittsburgh CLO production of The Music Man this summer, and we had five days of rehearsal before we did the show. So it almost felt like a luxury to have two weeks of a show that I had done before. But also revivals are easier to put up faster, and our set isn’t the sort of complicated set like maybe Company was where you could actually really injure yourself if you’re not aware of the technical elements. It’s just a basic set. It’s more about the people telling the story than it is about any technical element, so that made it easier to do as well. But, yeah, it definitely did have that feeling of come on the first day, know your words, and let’s throw this up and figure this out.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Once Upon a Mattress, featuring Nikki Renée Daniels, continues through Nov. 30 at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway. Click here for more information and tickets.
