- The Broadway Show is back with another stacked episode.
I'm Tamsen Fadal, let's get started.
♪ Tell me what you need ♪
- Platinum recording artist, Jojo,
just made her Broadway debut now starring
as Satine in "Moulin Rouge".
Let's send it out to Paul Wontorek.
- Jojo, you're on Broadway, you're in the "Moulin Rouge."
What is happening?
You're on that swing every night.
- Yes, that was the craziest thing.
The first night coming down on that swing,
I'm like, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna ruin it for everybody.
Everyone's night is gonna end when this girl dies on the...
But I was like just so excited to make it through
that first performance and then now I'm starting
to like, have fun for real.
- Have fun, yeah- - Yes.
- I mean, because it's Broadway, it's "Moulin Rouge."
It's an amazing role, amazing songs you'll get to sing.
I mean, this is like a great,
and you're a musical theater person.
- I am, yeah. - Yeah.
- It's a dream come true for me because I love theater,
I love pop music and it's just the perfect combination
of all things.
I'm doing things that I've never done.
To have almost 20 years of professional experience
under my belt and be doing things for the first time,
that's something very exciting for me.
- Are you also excited to show off your voice in this way?
- I am.
I'm singing from a totally different part of myself
and I'm learning, like this is an opportunity
for me to take the stuff I've been studying
with my vocal teacher and to put it into practice.
I literally won't survive unless I learn to sing
from a healthier place.
When you're in the recording studio,
you can blow your voice out, you can put vocal fry on it,
you can not breathe how you need to, you can't do that here.
- I love this musical because Nicole Kidman in the movie
was a very different Satine.
Satine on stage has a different kind of strength then,
and it's been so great watching so many amazing,
powerful women play it.
What do you love about her
and what are you sort of clicking in with about her?
- I love Satine, I really do.
I admire her strength very much
because she really has the whole Moulin Rouge on her back.
Not only is she a showgirl
and the main event at the Moulin Rouge,
she closes the night, but she's also a sex worker,
she's a courtesan, you know,
and that's no easy work that she does.
By, you know, seeing how she needs to speak to a man,
who she needs to be, she really is a chameleon.
She can be any woman.
I have respect for the choices that she's had to make
in her life to take herself up from the streets
and into, you know, the elephant,
which is her dressing room at the Moulin Rouge.
She's strong, even when people think
that she's being selfish in the choices she's making,
she's trying to be selfless,
she's trying to save her friends and family.
And so I respect the performer that she is
on and off the stage.
- When you were a kid, you did do theater.
- I did, yeah.
- How did theater come into your life?
Did your, someone in your family I feel like.
- My mom, my mom was a soprano in our Catholic church
and also very much musical theater woman.
So I grew up, you know,
listening to "Phantom of the Opera" tapes in the car
and "Little Shop of Horrors"
and a lot of soundtracks and stuff I just loved.
The first paycheck that I ever got
when I was like seven years old
was from the Huntington Theater in Boston.
I did "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
So that really set off my career.
And I used to take the Bonanza bus with my mom
from Boston to New York for auditions for theater.
But I, you know, started my recording career so young
that that's the direction that I went.
- You have always fought for your career
and you've had such an amazing career over the years
because I feel like your fans have really watched you fight
and you have such a loyal fan group.
- They're amazing.
- They were so excited when you surprised them
with this announcement.
Do you like surprising them?
And talk about that relationship with your fans
'cause I feel like it's really special.
- It's everything to me.
They really are a part of my life that I don't know
if I would still be here if it weren't for them.
So, especially the ones where we grew up together,
or the ones who were around when I was,
you know, not legally able to release music
and I was in a, you know, dispute with my label
and all that stuff that's a part of my past.
They're now here to be able to celebrate
how beautiful this moment is for me.
And they can see the joy, just the sheer excitement
that I am having from doing this.
Hopefully they'll come see the show
and there's been a lot of them at the stage door
and I've been able to talk with them and sign the playbill
and it's just another experience we can have together.