Katharine McPhee Is Opening Up About Closing Up Shop in WAITRESS

Welcome to Backstage with Richard Ridge. I am here with one of my all-time favorite people

Catherine McVie, who was back to close out Waitress in the role of Jenna in Sara Bareilles

hit musical Waitress now through January 5th, right? Yes, that's right. How does it feel to be

back? It's so great. It's like when I walked into the dressing room, I'm like, well, it looks better

than the last time I was in here because Shoshana, I think, did this lovely paper, wallpaper

paper, but it felt kind of just exactly how it felt when I left. Just a lot of the same

people have come back. I left, a lot of people left, and then they've all kind of come back. Yeah

So it feels good. It feels the same. It feels really nice. Because I was like, you and I spoke like two weeks ago, or right before you started

Right before I started, yeah. You hadn't gone back into rehearsal. How many rehearsals did you have

I think I probably started, I did about three brush-up rehearsals. Three brush-up and then

one full run-through, and that was it. I mean, that was kind of all I needed. I just needed like one run through to kind of go like, oh, what mark am I on

Was it supposed to be three or four, you know? Of course, it was a little different than when I did it in London

So, but yeah, I felt pretty good. The first show still felt a bit like out of body experience

What was that like, the first one? Because you got the audience, the lights again. Yeah, it's different than it felt the very first time

The very first time I was like, oh God, do I go right? Yes, okay, yeah, you're right

This one felt more just like, just overall just nervous, you know

just trying to, whoa, the sound is a little different than when it was my first dress rehearsal and things like that

Just, you know, little things distract you as when you settle in, you get less distracted

So that's the difference between, like, the first show and being settled into a show is that you're less distracted by, like

oh, that just fell or that didn't sound the way it was supposed to or whatever

Or I dropped this line. I'm pretty consistent now. Well, you know, you made your Broadway debut in this show

I did. Very, very special. You and I spoke numerous times about that. They're really magical things

I mean, what do you remember the most about that first run here in Waitress? Wow

This show's been very special for me for a lot of reasons. I mean, making your Broadway debut, I always dreamt of making a Broadway debut

And I had other opportunities to do that with certain shows. But I felt like this one felt really special to me

and you know you just anything that you choose to go down a road with you want it to feel

special you know you don't want to just do it just because like oh I want to do Broadway I want

to do something that I really care about but I mean for me so many things happened my I was on

a show for four years and everyone thought I was going to come back for a fifth season was called

Scorpion on CBS and while a lot of fans were disappointed I was actually like okay with that

because I was ready to move on. So it was nice because I got to stay in the show a little bit

But, you know, my dad passed during the course of me coming back to complete the show

I got engaged during the course of doing this show. So there's a lot of, like, I've been really reflective in the last few weeks

about, like, what the show means to me and kind of what has happened to me in my life since I joined the show

And, you know, like I never would have imagined that I would enter a show, make a Broadway debut, have, you know, a big engagement and then have something so huge like the loss of my father and it just being so abrupt and traumatizing

And then have this beautiful show as an outlet to kind of like get me through it

And then and then I ended up doing the show in the West End, like opening the show and having that whole experience and making friends in London

Like I can actually go to London now and have friends and say, hey, do you want to have drinks

I'm here in town. And then I got married in London. So the show has really been a huge transition show for me, transition period in my life

Yeah. And really, like, if you think about it, that's what this show is with Jenna, too

Like this is a huge transition show, not for her, moment in her life where these things are happening

She's starting to awaken to all these new possibilities. And so it's been very special for me to, you know, I didn't originate it, but I do feel so close and connected to it

And especially since I got the chance to open in London and create something there with new people

And so that's the long answer. But it's been very special for me

Yeah. You know, this is a very magical year for you, like you said. Yeah. I just got back from London

I fell in love with it all over again. And I went over to your theater where Waitress is still playing

Yeah, still playing. To Patch Houses. It's still doing great. Yeah, doing great business. Which I take a lot of pride in because, you know, you help set up a show

And it's, like, very exciting to know a show is doing so well. But like you said, you fell in love with London. Yeah

And you got married there. I did. It had nothing to do with waitress, actually. But it ended up being so great because I got to, like, end up being there and planning stuff while I was doing the show

And my friends who I made through the show were, you know, excited. And I had people to talk to of the wedding plans about

So it was pretty great. So what's married life like? You married to David Foster, one of the nicest men in the business

I want to put that out there. He's the best. I'm so happy. We're just really happy

We just are really, I've got a good thing going. We started as friends for a long time, so I think that that, and we're just a good balance

for each other. We really, I love supporting him and helping him and vice versa, making the best decisions

we can possibly make and being a team. It's really, it's really great

Yeah. How are you juggling the holidays this year? Well, we're here

So anyone watching this, you will be spending the holidays with me if you come on Christmas or a night of Hanukkah

But, you know, like, honestly, it's really nice. We're staying at the very nice

I'll plug it because why not? They didn't pay me to do this, but we're staying at the Carlisle

And it's so nice. Yeah, yeah. We've got a really good room rate

So that's why we're staying there. IT GREAT WE GOT A TREE FOR A HOTEL ROOM MY HUSBAND HAS ONE OF HIS DAUGHTERS HERE WITH THEIR FAMILY MY MOM IS COMING TO FLY IN WE MAKE THE MOST OF IT My mom coming to fly in So we going to just like make the most of it We have Christmas Eve off We going to cook and we going to my husband has an apartment here that his daughter

lives in. So it's going to be great. Like we're going to just have a

great, we're going to make the most of it. Yeah, we'll be on, like people

say, oh, that's a bummer. You have to do a show on Christmas. And I'm like, you know, actually it's fine because I'm

here for six weeks. It's a specific job to come close out the show

And it actually makes me feel like spirited and holiday, Christmassy to do a show on Christmas

I've never, I feel like what a nice thing to do for a group of 900 something people

to have a show on Christmas. I hope it's, that's all I gotta say

There's nothing better than New York at the holidays, like you said. That's what I think. Carlisle is stunning

It's so old world New York. I know. And they've renovated, right

So like, I'm gonna send this to the manager and be like, I hope you appreciate it

Put it up for a year at the Carlisle. We went and saw Steve Tyrell there. He had to put on a great show

He does a residency there every year. I perform there. So we're having a great time

We're just, like, loving being there. And the Christmas decorations are great

The food is great. The drinks are great. So I'm not hurting this holiday season

I'm doing pretty good. Well, let's talk about concerts. I mean, you like to do concerts, right

Especially like the Carlisle of Small and Intimate. Oh, yeah, so I've done that before there

I know. I was supposed to. They asked me to do some dates in October. Yeah. And we'd been traveling so much in the summer that I was like

I just can't allot this amount of time to stay in New York, but little did I know I was going to be coming back here

for six weeks during the holidays. But I love doing concerts. I'm doing two nights with Bocelli at the Madison Square Garden

Wednesday and Thursday. What are those dates? This Wednesday and Thursday. Okay, perfect

Yeah, the 18th and 19th. Okay. But that's different because it's like not my concert, clearly

I'm not doing my own concert at Madison Square Garden. But it's nice because you just go and do a few songs

and it kind of breaks up my schedule a little bit and a little change of pace

But, yeah, my own shows, I love it. There's nothing like it, you know, because people are there to see you

and you get to tell them stories about your life and sing great songs that you love

You have such an incredible fan base. I do. Yeah. You know what

I found this Twitter following, this young, fun theater. I mean, I think a lot of them are fan base from theater, but also from back in my idol days

who followed me through all my pop music and stuff. So I have a lot of fun playing with them online

And yeah, and I think that I've gained a lot of fans from just being with Waitress

They're so supportive, and they love seeing all the different Jennas and things like that

So I have a blast with them. Because we're waiting to set up. You know, we're literally sitting in her dressing room, literally, like an hour before she goes on stage

I color-coordinated, actually, with the wall and the couch. But I've seen there were so many fans picking up tickets, and there was a whole line down

Oh, was there? People were like, oh, we have to go before. I know, they get so excited. We're trying to get tickets for the last performance

There's, like, nothing left for your run. I mean, I'm sure Barry, the producer, is very happy

But, yeah, the tickets have been selling really well. And the last show is actually completely sold out

And I actually asked, I was like, do I get any tickets? First of all, you never get free tickets on Broadway

I don't even get free tickets. But they're saying, oh my God, we do have like a section of tickets that we can give out

But they're going for like $600 a ticket. I'm like, forget that. I don't know anybody who wants to pay that much

Sure you do. I'm not paying that for anybody. Your fans are. Yeah, well, that's incredible

What's it like meeting them at the stage door this time around? I don't know

I feel like maybe, I guess it's like a little bit more familiar. Like they're more familiar with, they've seen me maybe in London or they've seen the show

It's really nice. They're just very sweet and they're very polite. They're always asking, like, can I take a picture

I'm like, yeah. Yeah. You know, we have to talk about Smash for a minute because so many of us fell in love with you on that show

Yeah. And so many people have found Smash in reruns and everything else

Well, talk about fans who I meet. I just had this young girl at stage door the other day who, she was quite young

She looked like she was like 16 or 17. And she's like, I just discovered Smash

I just binge watched it the other day. And I'm like, that's so amazing that people can find series from six years ago and fangirl about it

Fanboy, fangirl. It's a bigger hit now. Yeah. It was a big mistake for them to cancel the show

I think so. And I think even Bob Greenblatt was quoted saying that he wished that he hadn't canceled it so early

He's not even at NBC anymore. But it was at a time when we were way ahead of the curve

and I think it was at a time that they didn't know how to monetize DVR numbers, right

They didn't know how to look at all these. Oh, my gosh, we have so many DVD, I'm sorry, DVR viewers

and they are people who advertisers love and all that, And they just couldn't, like, equate it to, you know, proving

More people were watching Smash than didn't. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So you must have so many incredible memories of that show

Yeah. What did that show mean to you? That show, to me, meant my childhood dreams coming true

Yeah. I mean, I remember being in the recording studio with Megan Hilty, who I love and adore

And we were recording Let Me Be Your Star. And I said to her, I remember so specifically saying, like, this is so crazy

And we barely knew each other at that point. We got along really well right away

But I just said, isn't this so crazy? It just feels like all your childhood dreams are coming true

And when she goes, literally, it's exactly that. It feels like all your childhood dreams are coming true

So for me, it just represents, like, something that, sure, I would love to have something else like that

that encompasses everything you've ever dreamt of, you know? I mean, being on stage does that as well

But, like, Smash was that first thing that really, I felt that I had worked so hard after post-idol to get something that people really paid attention to and cared about and was like, wow, and saw you in a different way

And, you know, that for me was that moment. Even though it was short-lived, the two years, it's been nice because it's lived on, you know

Going back to the beginning where did your love for performing begin Well that a tricky question because my love for singing began much earlier than it began for performing

Okay. So singing, what happened? How did you know you could sing

I just was always singing. My mom was a voice teacher, so I grew up with my mom giving kids and adults voice lessons all day long

So I'd come home from school, she'd be in the music room, and I'd hear the scales up and down

So it was just part of my upbringing, like music was always playing in the background

And so then I spent a lot of time on my own self-teaching myself like Mariah Carey

And my mom didn't sing like that. She was more of a legit style singer, like an opera singer, but she was more of a legit traditional musical theater

And so I loved Mariah Carey and Celine Dion and Boyz II Men

So I spent a lot of time self-teaching myself. So I just got better and better and better

But I always kind of from very young, like, you know when you hear a little girl sing and she has like a tiny little vibrato

And you're like, wow, she has a natural talent for that. So I think I just was aware of it quite young

But I didn't perform as much as I probably should have or been pushed to because that's where you really learn, right

You like really hone in on your skills. Was there a defining moment for you

When you're like, I want to try to make a career at this? I mean, I always knew I wanted to make a career out of it

but I had to really like getting up to perform in front of people was very scary for me

And I still to this day like get terrified. And I still will go like, what exactly are you so scared of

And I can't figure it out. You know, it's just I guess the perfectionist in you and in everyone

but in me in my case where it's like that fear of what you know you have to lean on your talent

will just like not be as perfect as you want it to be or fail somehow you know so not living up

to the expectation what you think people are expecting or knowing like how good it can be

and it not being as good and then you disappointing yourself so i think that's probably more of like

the fear of um stage like where stage fright comes in is that like you know you could do it

at a 95 percent but you get so nervous that it sometimes is like an 82 percent and then you're

always disappointed in that percentage that could have been better and i think that's where the

stage fright comes from it's like the pressure you put on yourself i think only you see that no

one else does that's true but but some people do you know some people like my husband for instance

you know he's got ears like i do where you hear every little note that's like but that's a great

thing about theater is that you it's what you know i i hate when people record the live performances

in theater because what you end up hearing on a YouTube, it's like as an audience in that live

experience, you didn't hear that one bad note. You were in... Organic. Organically just taken over by

the story. But if you record it and you YouTube it and you put it and then everyone's just going

like, oh, that wasn't very good or that. But you weren't there to experience it. And so you're

judging it from an artificial standpoint. Totally agree. So that's why we always say

don't you can't live theater is not meant to be it's not edited you know it's not cut and pasted

perfectly like a movie is so that it every little piece is seamless and it's between you and that

audience yeah given performance exactly so it's so out of context you don't it's just not you know

but anyway so my my um my nerves my my performance anxiety started very very young you know i just

kind of always had that. I think had I performed live more as a little kid, I would have maybe

gotten over the stage anxiety a little bit younger in my life. But you did idol in front of millions

and millions and millions of people. I was mortified, terrified. It was, people were like

what was it like? I mean, it changed my life. It was amazing. But like, I was so nervous. And

what it did, because I didn't have the performance skills, like I didn't have the experience

I would be so terrified that I would tense up, right, so like you would never sing as well as

you could, and I'm not complaining because I did really well, obviously I came in second place, but

looking back I can't even listen to those performances, because I know how much I've

grown, right, so it's like, it's just, it was an amazing training ground for me, because I needed

I needed to have those live performances. I just wish that I'd had more of those live performances

before I'd done Idol. So I would have been maybe a little bit more solid

in what I was and what I was doing. Reality TV is the most bizarre thing in the world

Yeah, well, reality TV is very bizarre. Idol, I like put it in a loose reality TV category

but talent competitions are terrifying if you don't have the experience to perform

in front of millions of people. it's it's really it's a horrifying experience

if you get stage fright you know some of like I remember Chris Jotter

would go out there and he would just like kill it every time because he'd been performing in clubs

for years and years and years so it was like he had the experience

you know what I'm saying he had the experience under his belt so it wasn't

as daunting to him I love how they do this is this what happens

in the theater right before you go on they'll tell you when your food is here they'll tell you when you have a visitor

um but yeah so my performance uh my love for performing yeah in the stage like came in high

school and middle school when i was you know doing the plays and the i loved the theater experience

because one of the first things you saw your mom in was showboat showboat you know all you have all

yeah i didn't like that experience so much because um she played julie who was supposed to be she

She would probably never get cast as this anymore, but she's mulatto, as they say. I don't even know if it's politically correct to say that

But they did this thing where they had to cut her hand in the show to see if she, I don't know the full story

but if she was actually the heritage that she said she was. Do you remember that moment

And for me as a four-year-old, watching my mom's hand. I was four

Watching my mom's hand get cut, I was very upset. It was very traumatizing for me I remember crying in the theater my dad consoling me like no no no it not real not real it acting And but because we were quite far away and I all I could see and there was actually like blood that came out So um if you don know the show you be like

what? What are you talking about? Google showboat? Google showboat. But then my mom did it quite a

bit. Yeah. I'm like, lots of regional productions and, um, so it was always in your family. Yeah

it was, it was. My mom spent a lot of time teaching, but I know for the times that she did

do, she had Man of La Mancha quite a bit. Great show. She was great in her shows

and she loved doing the live theater stuff, but she was always

busiest doing teaching and she's still so busy. She's like such a great vocal coach. She must

be your biggest fan. She is. She's so cute. She already came once to my

this opening here in New York. She came to the original opening, then

the London opening, then she came to this opening and then now she's coming back for Christmas

So she'll get to watch it one more time. What are your pre-shows

How early do you like to get to the theater normally? You know, it's so different

I don't know if people know this. Like Broadway fans, theater fans know this. But in London, they have a very strict policy that they do company warm-ups

Which I, coming from Broadway in New York, I was like, you're kidding me

I got to hear an hour and a half early before I'm like, I don't need, you know, they do

And I guess it's like an insurance policy that, you know, I kind of understand it

And I've actually gotten, weirdly, maybe someone coming to see the show would be like

why would you get injuries but i've actually gotten quite a few injuries from the show

because you know jenna's like everything's very like she turns her head quickly and um

or at least just the way that i thank you the way that i play jenna and um so it actually makes

sense that they do that because they want to cover themselves but and i actually grew to like it because i love the people in the cast so much but here i'm also appreciate the way we do hear things

here in New York is that usually when I have the first few shows when I'm trying to get myself

adjusted to it I'm here definitely an hour before the show I like to take the time because I'm a

little bit more nervous the first few times around but in this case it came early for you and if I

I have no problem getting here a half hour before I mean it's always sometimes like

embarrassing when I'm like walking and then people are waiting to get into the theater and they're probably thinking like god is this is that all she has to do to get ready like come in

like 20 minutes before the show. You're a professional. You know your stuff

Yeah, but the reality is I spend a lot of my pre-show

like before getting to the theater, after getting out of the show

warming down. I have these little straws that I do use to blow through. The straws of a new thing

Yeah, yeah, to warm down my voice. Okay. And I do things beforehand

Like I took a shower before I get here and I'm warming up. So it's not just like I roll in

and I have to really, you know, you have to be prepped. I have a Carlisle

Yeah. I mean for the matinees I have to really get up like hours hours early

because you're just you're breathing and your voice is just not warm with an

hour well you just need more time than that for me personally maybe there's some people can just yeah well I know you have it you have a call you have a lift

call in five minutes five minutes six minutes that's right so that's a big I wore this dress for you not sure how it's gonna work out with the lift calm

but it'll be fine the guys will yeah they'll be they'll be respectful you know

My final question for you is you live your life with such exuberance, style, and grace

Oh, thank you. How do you accomplish that? You always have. Because I met you early on

I met you on the smash set. I met you with Michael Orland. I'm going to give a shout out to him

That's nice. Well, listen, I really try. I can't say that I always handled every situation like coming off of Vital with his grace or whatever

But I do always try to be as kind and nice to people as possible, especially in work environments

I never want to be at my deathbed, which is hopefully a very long time from now, but say, God, I could have been so much nicer to people

I just think that being nice and kind is one of the most valuable things you can do

And you can also still have your boundaries and still say what you need

But I think it's always the way you ask for something, right, or the way you say things

So I appreciate that. Thank you. But it doesn't mean that I'm perfect. I mean, sometimes I have to rush through the signing line, and I see fans get upset that I didn't take as much time

But it's like everyone has to take care of themselves. Sure. And everyone has to have a little bit of grace for people and understanding that we're human, too. Sure

And we do the best to obviously honor our fans who've made the show so successful

And I want to thank them for watching this and for being so great on the show

Well, you make magic eight times a week. I thank you. This is the start of her week

It's Monday night. She goes on literally in less than 45 minutes. And I have a cough all of a sudden

I've been coughing all day. Really? I'm going to be fine, though. Yeah. So you're here until January 5th

January 5th. I'm here. So if you can get a ticket to see Waitress and see her in this beautiful show, try to get one

And thanks for tuning in to Broadway World. Make it work. Make it easy

Make it clever. Craft it into pieces. Make it sweet. Cream the edges

Or make it sour and serve with lemon wedges. Even dough can be delicious

And it washes off of all the dirty dishes. When it's done, I can smile

It's on someone else's blade for a while I'll place it on display

And then I'll slice and Serve my worries away Sugar, butter, flour

Don't let me down Let's see the next amazing thing

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