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Backstage with Donna Murphy!
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Nov 2, 2022
'This job came up, and initially I thought, 'What a horrible idea! To star as Dolly Levi once a week? How do you do that?' That first performance- and I really didn't know how it was gonna land- the community was so welcoming. I was flabbergasted when I dropped that newspaper, said 'Dolly Levi' and it wasn't Bette Midler's voice!'
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Welcome to Backstage with Richard Ridge
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My guest, two-time Tony Award winner, and one of Broadway's most cherished stars, Donna Murphy
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has stepped back into the coveted role of Dolly Gallagher-Levi in the Tony Award-winning Best Revival of Jerry Herman
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and Michael Stewart's beloved musical Hello, Dolly! for some select performances. And I caught up with her here at the legendary Sardi's
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Welcome to Sardi's. I love being here with you. Thank you. Richie Ridge
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Okay, so it is so wonderful to have you back on Broadway. What are you enjoying the most
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Wow. Performing for the most remarkable live audiences. Maybe I've ever, with all due respect to every other audience that I've performed for
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something about this show at this moment in time, and the audience's love and kind of hunger for it
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And getting to play this character, even with my limited performance schedule
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each performance is this celebration of so many things that are about life and about living and about connecting
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So to do that in the act of, in fact, connecting with these remarkable audiences
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I mean, I've never really experienced anything like what happens, not just at the end of the show or with wonderful laughter
1:36
which I've experienced certainly in other comedies that I've done, but there is something just incredibly..
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It's this combination of, I think, what is at the core of the show
1:50
which has a deep, meaningful journey, and then also the joy and the color and the life and the silliness
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and, again, the connecting that in this production also, I have to credit the production itself
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and this company, amazing company, I just never really at this particular time in my life
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in these few years since my husband passed away, I don't think there's another scenario
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in which I would be experiencing this kind of joy you know I mean there's a joy with my child
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that happens with all kinds of everyday things but this kind of out of my body expression
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and receiving of joy and that's in the performance
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the couple of shows that I've done so far coming back this summer I literally come off stage
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and say that was so much fun it just is truly joyful and
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I know I've said that word, I can't say the word joy enough in talking about this experience
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you know because there's something about this glorious production, I've seen it
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now like 16 times between all the dollars including you but there's something about going to the
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Schubert Theater from the second you walk in there's a joy in the audience there's a joy with
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this show there's just it's a feeling you really can't describe unless you experience what you
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experience at the Schubert Theater yeah it's really something I mean there's quite a few people I've
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met yeah who have seen the show like you yeah I mean in the teens and some of them have said this
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is my 15th time seeing you yeah like what and I think you know people will come back yeah to see
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me more than once and that's a great honor um but I'm shocked because I'm thinking I haven't played
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that more than 15 times I mean that's a little exaggeration they did all your shows then and
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there are people who come to like all of my shows there's some and there's it's it's not just me
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it's the show you know and and maybe the combination of me and this role for those of them who are
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coming to see me particularly, but it's really something that I will never forget
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And it hasn't been without its challenges, but the positives in it so greatly outweigh. Yeah
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How well did you know the show and the role before you did this? You didn't, did you
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I didn't. I knew Irene Malloy's material because when I came to the city, that was a role that
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Every once in a while I would get an audition for it in Summerstock
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or maybe even for a revival that was happening. You auditioned for Carol Channing's revival, I think
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I didn't audition for it. No? I wanted to audition for it, but I didn't, and I didn't see it
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So I'd never seen a full production. You knew Irene's side. But I knew, and I think even in high school maybe they did reviews
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and we did a little Hello, Dolly! section and I was singing the Irene stuff
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so I you know in all fairness I and an admission of my own ignorance I did not know the show well
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and so when I was asked to do it and I read the script I went what oh god I forgot she was a widow
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I had seen the film yeah but I sort of thought of that as funny girl too in my head because I
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I loved Strysand and just drank her in like nectar. But I wasn't as attached, or at least I don't remember being as attached to the story
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And so when I read the script and was reminded that she was a widow
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and that there were three widows in the piece, and what her journey was, first of all, I thought it was maybe too soon for me to consider doing it
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because it was only a few months after my husband had passed. But I was so surprised by the depth of it
6:06
that was working in tandem with this explosive joy and golden age of musical theater type writing
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that Jerry Herman gave us and Michael Stewart and how that team so wisely preserved so much
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of Thornton Wilder's writing. I mean, both his monologues and the script
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and the spirit and essence of what he wrote in The Matchmaker. Yeah
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What I love about you as an actress and what you do as Dolly
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you let us see inside your soul. And not everybody can do that
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and I was wondering what one of my favorite moments in the show is out of the dancing number
6:57
into the dialogue into put on your Sunday clothes when Dolly says she wants to re-enter
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I have goosebumps already to sit here talking to her about entering the world again
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is that one of your favorite moments in the show? I love that whole sequence from dancing on
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from experiencing putting these young folks together and she's got her own agenda
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You know, there's a reason that she kind of needs to do this
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I don't think she... She knows that she needs... She's made a decision that she wants to be with Horace
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But she's not an unkind person. So she's... I think there's a..
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She's always... Somebody can think on a dime. And so when she starts to see that
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oh my God the boys are in town The boys are in this hat shop And look at Well why not Why not these two Why not these I mean yes she a matchmaker but also in this moment she has a need
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and then the need grows to something beyond herself, which is to help these four people who are also living their own kind of sheltered lives to connect
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And she watches that, and I think in watching that, during dancing, for me anyway
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watching that bloom like opens her up in another way because it's a practical
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decision at the top of the show that she's made you know I don't want to live
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hand to mouth I don't really want to be alone I want to do
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for others what I do for myself but I don't think it's romantic I don't think it's
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I don't think she's thinking about it in a really soulful way
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I think that is the journey for her throughout the show that she starts to truly be alive in a lot of other ways
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even though it's interesting because the doll you meet at the top of the show
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is a very vivacious, engaged person with other people. But I picture her life at home quite different
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I think she talks to Ephraim all the time in that moment you just spoke of, and I was speaking of what leads up to it
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It's like you need, you have to earn that by all these little steps that happen up to that
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She's spoken to Ephraim before, but her coming to that moment of saying
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and without Mrs. Rose saying to her, I think even that piece of information about this old neighbor
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saying that her daughter, who was probably eight when I saw her last, is getting married
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and it's like this slap in the face about the passage of time
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and how much time we really have and how we choose to spend it
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And so it's a little different every night for me and I've been asked before how much I'm thinking about my own husband in that moment
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and I had to be very clear when I took the job
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that I reminded myself that Dolly is ten years out. my husband when I
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was considering the job had only passed away a few months prior
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when I started performances was it had only been a year now it's two years and sometimes
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it still feels like it's not even possible that he's gone and other times it feels like
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okay a few years have passed but I'm not in that place where I'm
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ready to I mean I want to embrace life. I want to appreciate every moment I have because there's just too many
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things in life that remind me not just my own personal loss, but what goes on in the
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world on a much more global level that you just don't know what's going to happen. We're
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so lucky to have what we have right now in this moment, sitting and talking to each other
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you and I, we have history, so we're lucky we have had that. So I want to embrace life
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and appreciate what I have. I'm not at that moment where I'm saying
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I want to connect with another person romantically. So it's Dolly's story
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But certainly I'm bringing a perspective that I didn't have five years ago
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Working with this remarkable cast. Look who you share the stage with. I mean, first of all, David Hyde Pierce
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It takes a very special kind of actor and human to think that it's a really great thing
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to have two leading ladies that you're going to play with in a show
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Because it's different, and some people might think it's difficult, but before I even started rehearsals
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from the moment that he heard that I was involved, and we've only known each other from sort of being on the block together
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and having a lot of dear, dear friends in common. Being on the block
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Yeah, on the block, on the Broadway. way um uh I've been a fan of his since I saw him uh in the Heidi Chronicles um but I and of course
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for every everything he's done since but I know him through friends and and have known that he's
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one of the kindest people you will ever meet in your life and generous but he wrote me and just
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said am I the luckiest guy or what to get to do this with Benton and Donna Murphy and to even be
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in that same sentence was surreal for me and david is as i said a man of great generosity and kindness
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and there are ways that he um demonstrates that not for attention it's really just so that he can
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give to people and some of it are gestures that are grander than others and some of them are very
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small but deeply meaningful and i've been privy to those you know really some amazingly kind and
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generous things that he's and things that he's done and just moments that he shared with me
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he's brilliant on stage brilliant and so present so i mean when i look into his eyes i never know
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exactly what he's going to do and i love that on stage i hope i can i hope i do that for people too
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um i mean not in a way that you're like holy crap what's going to happen david david no it's just
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like you're playing your side of the net yeah and maybe i'm going to lop it across this way and you
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want to know that you're playing with somebody who goes oh yeah well then how about this you know and
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David is the king of that. So I start there with his genius and his generosity
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and it's really easy to fall in love with him. And then every principal, both in the original company
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again, the welcoming. I remember Gavin Creel, I was at the company meeting
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the first day of rehearsals, even though I wasn't in all rehearsals
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because I would never invade on Bet's privacy in the process. But I did go to a meeting that was kind of just everybody saying hello
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and introducing themselves. And Gavin got up from his seat and just came and said
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I've just got to give you the big hug. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. The effervescence and the joy about what they do is contagious
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And the kindness and the generosity, again, I keep using those words. I don't mean to overuse them or be flip about it
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I'm not because it doesn't happen like that all the time. and this ensemble
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Every one of them is a star. Every one of them. You know, you have this incredible career on stage, screen, and television
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So let's talk about some of the theater highlights, and just tell me what comes to mind, either a story or a great memory, okay
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Sure. Broadway debut, they're playing our song. Favorite memory? So I got the job on my birthday, 20th birthday
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I was a sophomore at NYU, and I'd gone to an open call that was part of a class
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I was allowed to attend an audition as part of a survival in the theater class
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Go to the audition and come back and report on it. And I got this job. I got the call
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The message was in the reception desk, like my little message box at the Brittany dorm at NYU
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And I had a Broadway show. Edwin Drood. Oh God So Drood I had reached a point where I said you know what I don want to do chorus anymore because I was offered a lot of wonderful jobs and so I had been doing a lot of regional theater
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and off-Broadway, replacing people in shows. I'd done A, My Name is Alice, I did A Little Shop of Horrors
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I'd done some things out of town, and Drood came along, and it was an offer to do, to understudy
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study um uh cleo lane and a woman named john schneider was a wild outrageous actress uh in
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two of the roles and they said and there'll be two and there'll be a small role that they're
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going to write for you and another actress and and would you do the next reading and play the
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role of helena landless which is john's role so i was like oh it's just okay i'll do it in the park
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even though I said no course, no course. I just didn't want to get branded, and I wanted to keep growing as an actress
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So it turned out to be a life-changing experience. First of all, performing in the Delacorte
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at the Delacorte, for the people of New York, in a show that Rupert Holmes wrote
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practically every aspect of, down to the orchestration. No, the orchestrations, Michael Starabin did
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because they wouldn't allow Rupert to do anymore. He'd arranged it. He'd written the book and the music and lyrics
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He's such a genius. That company just watching. Are you kidding? Betty Buckley, Cleo Lane, George Rose, and then the newbies
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Howard McGillan and Patty Cohen. And Judy Kuhn and I were the understudies for all the women
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Understudies. We were the understudies for all the women and got these two little tiny featured moments in the show
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And both of us, neither of us went on in the park
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Judy was all set to go on one night, and we got rained out. And I thought, you know, and then we were moving to Broadway
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And I thought, I'm not going to do this. It makes me sad because I love the show
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but I need to move on and keep growing as an actress. And then they said, well, Cleo has like 16 concert dates
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so you know that you'll be on 16 times. And I was like, I'm doing it. I'm doing it
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I was so happy to have a reason that I wasn't totally breaking my own self-set restrictive rules
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Okay, working with Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, you had numerous occasions working for them
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The first, of course, was your first Tony Award win for Passion. Talk about those two men
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What is it like working with them and knowing them? I auditioned for them quite a number of times for different productions before Passion
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for revivals of Merrily, for the original production of Into the Woods
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I had quite a few callbacks for The Witch for the original production
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And so probably the next time I auditioned for him was for Passion
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Like the minute I started to work on the material, I started to enter this zone that I was starting to..
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It's like she kind of took over me. Oh, yeah. and my late husband joked you know that you know i like didn't wash my hair for a few days
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just kind of it's kind of finding ways of moving as somebody who was ill in the way that she was
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and he was like you know honey i really admire your commitment but do i have to have breakfast
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with fosca like you don't even have the job yet and i was like god bless him so so there was that
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And then it was actually doing it and working on it. And having material written and having it come over my fax machine
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I felt like it was like gold that was coming off of a, you know
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that was like coming into my lap. It just kept coming. And it was like, I'm going to read this
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I'm going to be the first person who sings this other than Steve. It was just, it was a tremendous experience
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There wasn't a moment of that. Even the hardest moments when the audience would applaud
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when I went down in a seizure on the floor and appeared to die
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or boo when I'd come on stage because she was obsessed with a man
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and she was not the most attractive gal on the Italian turf
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And so even then, it still was, I am doing what I've dreamed of doing
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with artists who love process. No captain I have, I have no illusions
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I recognize the limits of my dreams I know how painful dreams can be
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Unless you know The merely dreams There is a flower
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Which offers nectar at the top Delicious nectar at the top And bitter poison underneath
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The butterfly that stays too long and drinks too deep is doomed to die
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I read to fly, to skim. I do not read to swim
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Your second Tony Award, of course, for Mrs. Anna in The King and I
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Yeah. So when I was offered The King and I, while I was doing Passion, and that had never happened in my life
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I'd never been offered, just flat out offered a show without auditioning for it
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And to be doing one show and be asked to do something that would happen a year from then
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I'd never been able to plan that far out. And it was weird because I thought, well, I don't know what I'm going to want to do after this
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and I also had been doing mostly new musicals some of which were getting produced
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I mean I did the workshop of the low again and then we did a production and then I went directly into the workshop of passion
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or the second workshop of passion and the production it wasn't really a workshop
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but we continued a little bit of work on it and I really loved working on the material
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so I didn't know if I wanted to do a revival and I also didn't think I was good casting
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as Mrs. Anna I had a voice in my head. And even though I sing very differently from role to role
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I just didn't, excuse me, I did not hear myself. About halfway through the rehearsal process
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I realized, I don't know about this. I don't think I'm supporting the storytelling
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I feel like I'm in, I mean, it's all valid. It's all, because I did lots of research
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and the director was very encouraging of what I was doing. but I was really questioning it
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And then I took a different approach with the help of somebody else
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who had a different perspective on it and started to try to integrate that
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And I would say by the time we opened, I wasn't really there yet
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Thankfully, that's the great thing about theater is you get to keep working on it. It's constantly evolving
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Whatever you see on any given night at the theater, that's not that night's performance
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but it's going to be something different. I mean, it shouldn't be too different
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because you want to serve the writer and the director's vision and, you know, kind of change the steps to your choreography
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but it should be a little bit different each night because it's a whole different group of molecules
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who are gathered together, you know, just to watch the show to perform the show Anyway so with Mrs Anna it was a little past opening before I felt that okay this is starting to marry
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into something that is my own, but is serving what Oscar and Richard wrote
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And I'm sorry, but you've got to come back to what the writers wrote. Ruth in Wonderful Town
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Oh, God. That was another joyful one. And so I was at a time
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I hadn't been on stage in a few years, and I was considering a few things that I was fortunate enough to be offered
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and I really wanted to do a play, two plays that I was considering
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I was like, wonderful plays, but I'm not like going, oh my God, I must do this
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And then a friend said, I heard you were like on a list of actresses to possibly do the City Center Encore's production of Wonderful Town
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And I said, really? Oh. I called my agent, and he said, yes, you're on a list
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but you're not number one on the list. And they'd gone out to so-and-so. I said, well, I listened to the score, and I read the script
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I said, I had said to my husband, I would love to play
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before I'm too old to play it, somebody who has a sort of unbridled sense of abandon
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and express that on stage. and there are more mature roles than I thought of at that moment
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that do get to do that but that show, not unlike Dolly
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so joyful and it was a rediscovery. There hadn't been a gazillion revivals
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on Broadway in the recent past. In the 50s and 60s, yeah
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And it was an agonizing time while it was joyful because I was missing shows
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because I was at risk of basically damaging my life. You're only human. People forget that
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Yeah, but people didn't like you to talk about that. And what was most painful about that time
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was that my professionalism was being questioned. And, I mean, I take this business very seriously
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I take my work very seriously. I love to have fun doing it, but that hurt more than anything else
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that that was being questioned. And that I felt like I was letting my company down
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but I could only do what I could physically do, you know, and so it was bittersweet
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Come on, Eileen, up and at them. We're going to take this town
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I see. I know it. Wonderful Town. Call telecharge.com today. If you could sum up the best part of the experience of doing Dolly
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because you're coming into the end of the run here, what would it be for you? The unexpected pleasure of being on stage again
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at a time when I really thought, I don't think I'll be, excuse me
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I don't think I'll be doing theater for a while. You know, my husband was ill
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I'd been workshopping a show that was coming to Broadway, and we were negotiating that at the time that my husband was diagnosed
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and I had to withdraw from that because I knew there was no scenario
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by which I would be free to be doing that. and away from my daughter, and I didn't know what his needs would be
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So, and I thought, you know, if Sean was still with us
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I wouldn't be able to make a commitment to something for eight times a week for any long term
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because it would be for the grace of God that he was still with us because his prognosis was so bad
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Not that we ever gave hope until we knew we had to, he knew he had to let go
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So I didn't see any scenario by which I could be away from my grieving child six days a week, eight shows a week
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It wasn't a responsible choice. And then this offer came out of the blue
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And my gold ring, I thought that I was riding on the carousel trying to grab, was an ensemble television series shooting in New York
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because I'd been traveling to do a lot of that television and film work out of the city in the years prior to that
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I said, no, I've got to work in New York. And anyway, this job came up, and initially I thought
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what a horrible idea to star as Dolly Levi once a week
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How do you do that? How do you not rehearse with a company? It's one thing to go on as an understudy in an emergency situation
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but how do you, you know, people buy tickets knowing they're going to see you
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and you kind of drop into the Schubert once a week. How do you do that
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How would I do that? Miss, I love the process, you know
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But, and then as I said, I read it and I went, what? No, I couldn't, I couldn't
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The more I thought about it, and I chose four very dear friends
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who were not friends with one another, know me from different times and different perspectives
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but each of them in their own way had kind of a global view of my life
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as an actor, as a mother, as a grieving person, lost her life partner
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and who had practical points of view about, you know, how was I going to support myself
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How was I going to support my daughter? And each of them, in separate conversations
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said in their own way, you're going to think I'm crazy, but this could be kind of perfect
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And I listened, and I went, okay. that first performance and I really didn't know how it was going to land
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the community and I say community whoever was sitting out there in the audience some of them
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were in the business some of them were not they were so welcoming I was flabbergasted when I dropped
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that paper and said Dolly Levi and it wasn't Bette Midler's voice or face that they were seeing and
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they were so welcoming to me and it wasn't just that moment it wasn't just the hello
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it was really getting what I was just starting to develop as my Dolly
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They were getting it, and that was encouraging to me. So I just kept coming back on Tuesdays
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and two weeks later I played two weeks, because Beth was taking her first vacation break
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and experiencing the kind of joy that you get to experience if you're playing Dolly Levi in this production of Hello, Dolly
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this beautiful production with this company. with this cast for these audiences in 2017, 2018
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where people really need this kind of show. I'm sad it's closing, but hey, I never thought I'd be coming back
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And as I said earlier, every night that I'm there, which is once a week, Sundays at 3, and Monday, August 20th at 7 p.m.
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I come offstage and I'm like, oh my God, that is just..
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almost too much joy to contain in one scene. But I don't have to contain it
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That's what's so great about Dolly
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