INTERVIEW: Jennifer Fouché on her journey back to ‘Chicago’
Photo: Chicago features Jennifer Fouché as Matron “Mama” Morton. Photo courtesy of the artist / Provided by BBB with permission.
Jennifer Fouché has one word to describe her time in the Broadway company of Chicago: “incredible.”
This summer, Fouché is playing the iconic role of Matron “Mama” Morton at the Ambassador Theatre on 49th Street. Mama is a role that the actor knows well, having performed the character on Broadway before and also in the national tour of this beloved musical. Mama’s in charge of the women’s cellblock, welcoming the likes of Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart to their new lives of incarceration. In her job, she has one mantra: Be good to Mama, and Mama will be good to you.
“It’s been incredible, and it always is,” Fouché said in a recent phone interview about her return to Chicago. “I have to say that it really is a family at Chicago, and we all love the show. We all love what we do. We get along really well. It’s a beautiful company full of very talented and lovely people, and this is my bucket list role, bucket list show.”
Fouché’s journey with Chicago began at the end of 2018; that’s when she booked the Broadway tour. It was a full-circle moment for the talented performer because she always told family and friends that one day she would love to portray Mama on stage. Skip ahead a few years, and Fouché was making her Broadway debut in the new play Chicken & Biscuits, one of the first shows to open after the extended closing of theaters due to the pandemic. That’s also the time when Chicago came knocking again.
“I was in that very small club of people who was doing two Broadway shows at one time,” she said. “It’s very odd. I made my Broadway debut in a play called Chicken & Biscuits. It was one of the first plays back on Broadway after the pandemic. It was in 2021, and while I was in that show, Chicago called and said, listen, Lillias White [who was playing Mama] … had to be out for a week. And they asked if I could do it. I was actually the standby for the lead role in Chicken & Biscuits, so I asked the producer, ‘So, listen, I know this is a big ask, but I’d be a fool not to ask. They want me in Chicago.’ So the producer was lovely enough to agree that if Chicago gave me a rider saying that if Chicken & Biscuits needed me then Chicago would put their coverage on, and I would go back to Chicken & Biscuits. And so I made my Broadway debut in Chicken & Biscuits on Oct. 11, 2021, and then 10 days later, I made my on-stage Broadway debut in Chicago on Oct. 21. I’ll never forget that, and it was so fitting that my on-stage Broadway debut was in this show that I love so much. It’s wonderful to be back.”
That’s quite the unique story for a performer on Broadway. Many actors start out in national tours and then work themselves toward Broadway, but it’s exceedingly rare to make one’s standby debut and then a week later make one’s on-stage debut — in different shows, to boot. Since those early days, Fouché has gone on to other impressive shows, including POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive. Plus, she toured Japan in Chicago and was an original cast member of Sistas: The Musical, the long-running off-Broadway hit.
For Fouché, the role of Mama is the main reason why she has dedicated the last few years of her professional life to Chicago. “I think it’s the duality of her,” she said. “These characters are very Shakespearean in a way, and they tell you exactly who they are. So the very first thing that Mama does is she comes out and she sings, ‘When You’re Good to Mama,’ and she means it. Reciprocity, she’s all about it. You do for me, I do for you. Even though that really does encapsulate a great part of her, the reality is she also loves these women on the cellblock. She really does. … What I love about portraying her is this beautifully human, very real, complex duality that I think exists in everyone. We all have light and dark in us in different capacities, and that’s what’s so wonderful about her. She’s all heart and all business. It’s fun to walk that line every night.”
Fouché added: “It’s important for this show to run in this time. … The fact that there’s an obsession with celebrity, there’s an obsession with fame, both the people who have it, the people who want it, the people who consume it, so I think that’s important. I think it’s incredibly timely to see the way the media can manipulate stories that can feed that frenzy of fame and celebrity, that hamster wheel.”
Fouché loves exploring infamy, fame and the interesting intersectionality between both of those extremes. There’s also the feminist aspect of Chicago that has intrigued Fouché over the past couple of years.
“The fact that these two women feel like them banding together is the best way to beat the system is very interesting,” she said. “I think that looking at what’s happening, the cycle that our society is in, it just remains relevant. It remains incredibly relevant. Artistically, I think the show is important because it’s the only [Bob] Fosse show on Broadway. It really is old school Broadway in every way, from the music to the choreography to the bits and the jokes. I think that Chicago is an incredible show to have right now and to continue to have.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Chicago, featuring Jennifer Fouché, continues at the Ambassador Theatre on Broadway. Click here for more information and tickets.
