INTERVIEW: For Chilina Kennedy, Broadway continues to be ‘Beautiful’
Photo: Beautiful: The Carole King Musical stars Chilina Kennedy in the title role. Photo courtesy of Joan Marcus / Provided by DKC O&M with permission.
Beautiful: The Carole King Musical recently celebrated a rare achievement on Broadway: its fifth anniversary. The Midtown theater business is a difficult one, especially for musicals, but this trip down memory lane continues to pack in audiences year after year.
It doesn’t hurt to have a songbook that includes such hit tunes as “So Far Away,” “Some Kind of Wonderful,” “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “One Fine Day,” “It’s Too Late” and “I Feel the Earth Move,” among many others.
At the center of the musical’s success is Canadian actor Chilina Kennedy, who has played the title role for the better part of four years.
“It’s incredible,” Kennedy said in a recent phone interview about her time in the show. “I mean, I’ve played a lot of great parts, but I think this is hands down one of the best or the best role I’ve ever take on. I mean, I wouldn’t have been able to do it for as long as I did if it wasn’t bringing me so much joy every night. She is really an incredibly wonderful woman to step into her shoes every night, and I was just talking about it yesterday actually how glass-half-full she can be and how positive the message is of the show. It adds something to my life. It’s incredible.”
Before Kennedy took on this iconic role, she had already been a fan of King’s music. At a young age, she fell in love with the singer’s Tapestry album and grew up humming many of the tunes.
“I always thought I was a fan of Carole King because of Tapestry, but, of course, I didn’t realize the scope, the sheer amount of material she’d written and the number of number-one hits,” she said. “I had no idea she’d written ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow.’ I had no idea that was her song. … There are so many great, great tunes that I grew up listening to. I remember ‘Smackwater Jack’ was one that I listened to in the car with my parents, and I used to sing it all the time. I had no idea until I started doing research for the show that it was of course her tune.”
Kennedy’s audition process for the show was an experience she’ll never forget, mostly because it was a serendipitous combination of the personal and professional in her life.
Here’s how it goes: Five years ago, she was in contention for the original Broadway cast. She received a callback for the role of Carole King, but she was unable to go because of a previous theater commitment. Jesse Mueller went on to win the part and win the Tony Award.
“I couldn’t do it because I was doing something else,” she said. “It killed me [to not go to the callback]. I was just broken-hearted about it, and so then of course it went on to great acclaim. Jesse won the Tony, and then they asked me to come in and replace Jesse. And I thought, oh my goodness. … I did something that I don’t normally do. I kept all my music and my scenes from the audition, and I kept them in a little hidden place. I usually throw them out, and I just kind of forget about it and move on to the next thing. But I kept these ones because the project meant so much to me, and I felt such a connection to the role and to the whole show in general.”
When Kennedy received the phone call the second time around, she thought they weren’t being serious. They were being serious, and so she pulled out those scenes and music selections from the previous year’s audition.
At the same time, Kennedy was almost nine months pregnant and living in Canada.
“So I flew down being very pregnant and auditioned,” she said. “I put myself on tape for Carole because, of course, she needed to have final approval on who was playing her, and I did it very, very pregnant. Then I flew back to my home in Canada and then went immediately into labor from the stress from flying, and then it stopped of course. And it just went back to a normal pregnancy, but I just thought that was such a funny story because, of course, Carole had four children. I thought if anybody could understand that position it would be her, and then my agent called me on Monday and said, ‘You booked it. She approved you.’ So it was fantastic news.”
Kennedy said she didn’t want her first show after the pregnancy to be Beautiful on Broadway, so she actually landed a role in Mary Poppins in Canada. She performed in that musical seven weeks after giving birth to her son, and by the time she became Carole King in Midtown Manhattan, her boy was five months old.
“And then it was so funny because life imitates art,” she said. “Louise, my baby in the show, Gerry [Goffin] and Carole’s first born, she is five months old in the show. So I actually had a five-month-old of my own at home, and then carrying around the five-month-old in the show. How funny is that.”
That first performance at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre was approximately four years ago. Kennedy has been on this musical journey ever since, with a few pit stops along the way.
“It’s been the better part of four years with some breaks in between, so I took over for Jesse in 2015,” she said. “And then I took a break to go and do Beautiful up in Canada in Toronto for the run up there. That was just that little part of the tour that I joined so I could do it at home, and then I came back to it. And then I took another almost seven months off to do some other projects, and then I just came back again. So it’s been well over 1,000 performances now.”
She added: “Honestly, to get a long-running show in the first place is finding a needle in a haystack. To make it to Broadway to begin with, you have to be so lucky. To get a successful show, to be a part of that, is a huge deal, and then to actually be in something that’s been running for five years, I count my blessings every single day before I go on stage. I say thank you and can’t believe my luck, and to also obviously be playing a part that I feel that I can play for this long is huge because I don’t think I’d be able to play every part for over 1,000 performances. I don’t know if that would be as easy with another show. I had no idea that it would a) run this long and b) that I would love it so much and that they would want me to stay for all this time.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, starring Chilina Kennedy, is currently playing the Stephen Sondheim Musical in Midtown Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
