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TBT: Kelli O'Hara Opens SOUTH PACIFIC On Broadway!
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Oct 31, 2022
This Sunday, Tony Award winner Kelli O'Hara and the cast of Roundabout Theatre Company's Kiss Me, Kate take their final bow at Studio 54. To celebrate the show's run that's been too darn hot, we're throwing it back to Kelli O'Hara's opening night in the 2008 Broadway revival of Rodgers andamp; Hammerstein's South Pacific alongside Paulo Szot, Danny Burstein, and more. Get a blast from the past by checking out the video!
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Cue the spotlight, shine them bright
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Gonna have a grand new show tonight With glitz and glam on the marquee
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Perhaps a Tony nominee Stars beam brightly, see them glow Sell out nightly, SRO
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It's time to applaud the Broadway beat Stars be brightly, sweet and low
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In the footlights of a show Light is sweet on the world's most famous street
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Tickets please Take a seat Cue the band And have your feet
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To the rhythm of The Broadway Beat The Broadway Beat Broadway Beat
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge and welcome to Broadway Beat, our behind-the-scenes look at the very best of what the New York
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Theater has to offer. One of the most beloved musicals of all time, Roderling Hammerstein's
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classic South Pacific, is back on Broadway at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater in a
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glorious new production by director Bartlett Schur. It stars Kelly O'Hara as Nellie Forbush
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Matthew Morrison as Lieutenant Cable, and making his Broadway debut, Paolo Zot as Emile DeBeck
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The production is open to rave reviews and is now set for an open-ended run
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We celebrated with the cast on opening night. I didn't know it very well at all
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I actually have never seen it on stage. And I knew the movie, but I never really liked the movie
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But what I did was, Andre gave it to me and said, really take a look at this, and I reread it
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And when I reread it, it was like, are you kidding me? This is the most brilliant thing I've ever seen, or ever read, just to read it
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Never mind how good the music already was. and so it seemed like it had so much wonderful stuff in it that it was hard not to give it a shot
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The relevance, it's so relevant today. This was written in 1949, but it could have been written yesterday
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Did that amaze you when you read it again and started staging it? Yes, that was very clear to me when I read it again
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I knew that Logan was very influenced by Stanislavski and all that, so the scenes were very rich
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The reality of the scenes were rich. And they didn't have a lot of really intense localism to them, so that was fun
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At the same time, being somebody who grew up in the 60s and 70s, I've been through all
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these military experiences. My brother was at the Naval Academy and suddenly I was finding myself in the middle of these
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things that I felt like I knew differently than maybe they knew it then
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And I could look through this long telescope over those decades and go there a lot to learn from this show We started with the follies and things that were actually dance steps and whatnot and we gave them that vocabulary
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And then we really, I mean just Bart and I really had a really great collaboration on let's treat it like a scene
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let's musicalize it, now Chris you take it, now Bart you take it, and Chris take it. And it was a really fantastic blend I thought
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of how to work with someone at that level. I mean, just completely meshing
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What was the first number you worked on? What was the last number you worked on? The first was, I think it was Bloody Mary, actually
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with the guys and them jumping over the hill and trying to work out what that would be like and whatnot
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And then the last was watch that band because there's so many elements in that
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with the water and her hair and the shampoo and the foam and the stage
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There were so many elements of trying to just nail everything and that and tell a story but also satisfy the audience
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and the washing and all that kind of stuff. So that took us quite a bit. Oh, yeah, I got to play Luther Billis
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He's a wheeler-dealer who's not very good at wheeling or dealing, and he's got an enormous crush on Nelly Forbush
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but it's unrequited and nothing he does can make her love him
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But he does something very brave at the end of the show and just for her love and just to see her happy
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And I think that's very special. I love the journey that his character takes. I knew all the songs of the show
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I didn't really know the storyline per se, but it's amazing to go out there and, I mean
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And the greatest form of art is, for me, is the ability to make art ask questions
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And I feel like the show does ask so many questions about the world we live in, about war, about racism
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And to be able to kind of be one of the people who is a catalyst for that is awesome
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And it's amazing to have people really think and really try to figure out things for themselves
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I feel like I'm the queen of the world. I just can't believe that this much goodness has been brought into my life
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I'm so fortunate. I'm so fortunate. Tonight when we were finishing the show
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I just kind of looked around at the flowers in my room and at my friends in the show
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and the realization that I just did a show on Broadway and I just turned 50
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How good is that? Congratulations. A Rodgers and Hammerstein show at Lincoln Center and turning 50
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Can you believe that? Oh my God. And I'm in love with the love of my life and married to him too. So, you know
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this is about as good as life gets, I think. That's great. Well, tell me what this experience
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has been like with working on this show and this wonderful role. Talk about her. Oh my gosh This has been truly the most incredible experience of my life Every single day in rehearsals was like taking a master class I had I only done community theater in Hawaii I never done professional theater
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and to come here and be surrounded in in a room with actors like Kelly and Paolo and Matthew and
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Danny Burstein who is my rock star and to hear them read the script the way that they read it
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was so intimate, was so not what I was expecting. And I learned so much from watching them and listening to them
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and tried to absorb as much as I possibly could with all of this
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And then working with the orchestra, which was the time of my life
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I have never sung with an orchestra ever. So to be able to stand on a stage and sing these songs
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these incredibly beautiful, moving songs, and to do that with a 30-piece orchestra
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I felt like my feet weren't touching the ground I mean it has just been
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it's been the most wonderful experience of my life and I mean that
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I'm not trying to be cute about it this cast is incredible
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they are amazing we are a family we love each other and they lift me
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they lift me every day just to be with them every day and I learn from them every single day
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and Bart Sher, our director is brilliant I mean really not enough
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I think has been said about him and how he has coddled the show and all of us actors in it and
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done everything he can to not only be as true and right to the story and the music, but to make all
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of the actors look their best and sound their best and be their best and feel their best. For somebody
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to put us in that situation and lift us up onto that stage is just amazing. He's brilliant
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Yeah, it's a great role. I think it's the perfect role for me in the moment
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And Emildebeck is this wonderful guy, exactly, literally, as the song says
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But not only that, it's a gift for a performer to be able to sing these songs
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I'm a chanted evening, and this nearly was mine, especially that gives this intimacy to
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to the performer, and it's a great experience. I cannot imagine not doing that anymore
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And talk about playing opposite your leading lady, Kelly O'Hara. Oh my God, Kelly is so adorable
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I totally in love with Kelly and from the first rehearsal we felt very connected and she was helping me all the time because she so experienced on Broadway and it just wonderful Every day we go on stage and we discover new
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things. So she's a great partner to work with. How well did you know the show before you started working on it
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I didn't. I didn't. I had seen the movie as a child, and I'd never seen a live performance, even still
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I've never seen it in high school or community theater or anywhere
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No concert version. So I came to it with brand new eyes, and the first time I read the script
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I had no idea it would move me the way that it did, and then I knew that I had to play it
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Well, talk about your Nellie, because she's different than anybody I've ever seen before
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I mean, so when you read her, what did you want to bring from the page to your performance
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Well, she's a real person, for one thing. And I knew the person
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My grandmother, my mom's mother, born and raised in Arkansas. She's no longer with us, but she was a beautiful woman
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But she was carefully taught a lot of things. And I brought Mimi to her
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That's all I know. All I know is that I know this person inside and out
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There's a heart and soul to your Nelly that I had never seen before
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and there's so much of her inside you that comes out during the course of the show
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Well, I feel almost like I've been given a chance to make some changes earlier for Mimi, who's my grandmother
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I feel like I've been given a chance to show that a person can change
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and I think it's only I'm only able to do that if I make her a real person
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that you can identify with and you can see that people can change. If she's a character on a stage
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you don't identify with her that if she's just a person or just something written down
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a cartoon character but if she's a person that you could maybe get to know or understand
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you can see her journey and I think that's really important when we're talking about race
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especially today. Thank you
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