INTERVIEW: From Australia to New York City, without ever leaving the Moulin Rouge
Photo: From left, Pepe Muñoz and Samantha Dodemaide star in Moulin Rouge! The Musical. Photo courtesy of Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade / Provided by BBB with permission.
NEW YORK — Samantha Dodemaide, currently making her Broadway debut in Moulin Rouge! The Musical, has been on a global journey with her character of Nini. She played the part in more than 700 performances on the show’s Australian tour, and then she had the chance to audition for the Broadway company. She landed the role again, and now she’s have toe-tapping fun in the dance-heavy musical at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, eight times per week.
“It has been such a journey,” Dodemaide said. “It’s been very exciting. It’s been very surreal actually. Even though I’m doing the Broadway thing, it still doesn’t feel like I am, if that makes sense. Sometimes I have to pinch myself. I’ll walk out of the stage door and look around and realize, ‘Oh, you’re here in New York City. You’re here on Broadway,’ so it feels very surreal. But it’s been the most incredible month so far. I couldn’t be happier being here.”
Dodemaide spent nearly three years with Moulin Rouge! in Australia. She auditioned for the show, which is based on the successful Baz Luhrmann film, and then she played Nini for the entire run, lasting an amazing two years and nine months in the role, which is nothing short of a marathon.
“It was about three years from audition to finishing up, so it was a really long time,” she said. “I did over 700 shows of Nini in Australia, and so during that time, I had received my green card, which was a bit of a work in the progress for many years. And I knew I wanted to move to New York and give the performing life here a bit of a crack, and it just so happened that the position of Nini became available. I definitely made it clear to the creative team and the producers that I would love to continue on with the show because I think even though Nini is a very physically demanding role, when I finished it in Australia, my heart wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the show. So I really wanted to continue on, but how it works in Australia, that’s not really possible. Once a tour finishes, it finishes, so I was definitely keen to do it somewhere else in the world. And the fact that Broadway happened to come up, and all the stars aligned with my green card, and I was already planning to move here, was such a blessing.”
Moulin Rouge! The Musical, now starring Solea Pfeiffer, John Cardoza and Boy George, uses snippets from a plethora of pop songs, including tracks from the Talking Heads, Beyoncé and Elton John, among many, many others. This inclusion of popular radio music actually proved to be an obstacle for Dodemaide, who always saw herself as a different type of singer.
“When the audition came up, I actually didn’t audition the very first time that Moulin Rouge! came around,” said Dodemaide, who has also performed in The Wizard of Oz and Violet. “I was contracted to do a different show. I was going to be playing a role in 9 to 5 — Judy Bernly. Broadway belter is my usual go-to, so when Moulin Rouge! came, I was like, ‘Oh, that show looks amazing, but I’m not a pop singer. I wouldn’t call myself cool in that way.’ I was like, ‘That’s not my show.’ Then COVID happened, as we all know, and so all of our shows in Australia got put on hold. So 9 to 5 was postponed. We weren’t sure if it was ever going to come back, so in that time, Moulin Rouge! had come back around and auditioned again. And I had a friend who was dance captain on the Broadway show, and she said to me, ‘I think you should come in and audition.’ And I said to her, ‘Oh, but I’m not a pop singer. I don’t think I fit the show,’ and she is the one that convinced me that, ‘I think you’re suited perfectly. Come on in.'”
Dodemaide added: “So the irony is that I never thought I would be in a show that featured pop music. It just wasn’t my go-to or my forté, and here I am in my fourth year doing this incredible show. And I love it. I was very familiar with all of the tracks, but I never thought I’d be singing ‘Single Ladies’ on a Broadway stage, that’s for sure.”
The choreography of the show by Sonya Tayeh is legendarily energetic and physical, with almost constant dancing from the first note to the last. This keeps the company of performers on their toes and has challenged Dodemaide, but she’s up for the challenge.
“I had never felt anything like Sonya Tayeh’s choreography,” she said. “It’s both exhilarating and so difficult, so it feels so good in your body. And yet you feel so challenged, and I think that that is what drew me to wanting to do the show the most. I had never experienced anything like that, and I definitely had doubts.”
Dodemaide’s philosophy of performing is to give it her all at every performance. The 125 percent that she offers during the audition, with the intention of landing the part, is mirrored in her time on stage at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. Anything less just wouldn’t cut it.
“After years of doing eight shows a week, I am very conscious of going into an audition, whether it be a vocal track, a dance track or all of them combined,” she said. “I think right at the start I always become very conscious whether I can deliver because I’ve always got a rule: Whatever I deliver in the audition room is what I have to deliver on stage eight times a week. … And the strange thing about Moulin Rouge! is that as difficult as it is, it brings up something in me, my love for the show and my love for Sonya’s choreography and how it feels.”
Dodemaide added: “It makes it easy to do every night because of the passion and the love that I have for the show, if that makes sense. I’ve done quite a few dance-heavy, physical shows before, and this one tops it. This one is very much the most difficult I’ve ever done, but it’s also the one that feels the best to do and that I enjoy the most on my body. I think that that helps the difficult side of it.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Moulin Rouge! The Musical, featuring Samantha Dodemaide, continues at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on Broadway. Click here for more information and tickets.
