[MUSIC]
--Kelli O'Hara is coming back to Broadway for the first
time since winning a Tony for The King and I shall play put-out actress Lilli
Vanessi in Kiss Me Kate.
Here, she offers an exclusive listen and her first
interview this new stage venture.
[music]
--So excited you're coming back to Broadway!
--Yay
--In another classic, classic Broadway musical role, right?
--Yeah --I mean, you are tackling a lot of the classics
in your career.
--You know, I've tried not to do two in a row like this, ever, but
--Try to do new, then a revival
--But this is a this
one just this fell this way, and I'm glad.
[sings] --Without you my arms
fall about you.
You know, darling, why
--This song in particular is so beautiful
and sexy.
It's like one of the sexiest love songs, right?
I mean...
--That's kind of how I feel about it.
It feels like she's she's really taking control of how she feels
and admitting it and being okay with it, and kind of saying that it's not
easy, but I gotta have it.
You know, it's nice.
--Yeah she's singing about her ex-husband, obviously Lily's singing
about him.
And it's kind of early in the show and you realize like, Oh.
She is so in love.
--Yeah.
She's still pining.
Sometimes two people really kind of put each other through the wringer, and
they they're just they're magnets for each other.
They get back together.
And that's kind of how they are, and I like that she kind of shows her underbelly
right then in the beginning, so that we know she's human and and full of
fire about him.
--Haunt me, taunt me.
I love the lyrics are so great.
--It is a sexy song.
I like that you think that.
--In her 18 years on the Broadway stage, Kelli O'Hara has risen to
become one of the biggest stage stars of her generation.
Her latest project is the Cole Porter musical comedy classic Kiss Me
Kate, playing Lilli Vanessi a vain actress forced to partner up with her ex-husband
to star in a touring production of The Taming of the Shrew.
--So in Love is obviously a very lush romantic song, but
this score is actually really really bouncy.
And the character, this is sort of her most romantic dramatic moment,
but there's a lot of comedy.
--She's larger than life.
Of course, I want to try to put every bit of humanity that I can
into her.
I want to really get inside their love story, and how they were as a
couple when they were married, and why they say both still hanging on because
obviously, they are.
I don't want it to be about two egotistical, kind of, combating
actors.
I actually don't want to throw actors under the bus here.
I want to really talk about the human beings and
the good human beings they are but they're in a moment.
[strings]
--[sings] So, taunt me and
hurt me.
Deceive me,
desert me!
I'm yours til I
die.
--The last Broadway staging of Kiss Me Kate in 1999 starred Brian Stokes Mitchell and
Marin Mazzie, the musical theater icon who lost her battle with ovarian cancer
in September.
--My real history with it, the one that comes to heart my heart right
away is that I saw it 20 years ago with Marin.
The idea of doing it right now is even more special to me because when
I left The King and I, she came in.
And she was such a, she's such a hero of mine.
I mean the first one of the first shows I ever saw was Ragtime with Marin Mazzie.
And, so, kind of now turning circles here and stepping into what she was so
brilliant at doing, and paying homage to her.
--The whole community is grieving Marin Mazzie, and this was definitely one
of her great, her great turns.
--Oh yeah.
I mean, I can see her in my mind and her hair flying out the windows and throwing
things.
And she was just so spunky and energetic, and I want to find of course
my own take on it, and I think she would want me to, but just the idea of doing it
helps me honor her in some way.
--O'Hara spent her summer making her London stage debut in The King and I, reprising
the performance that won her a 2015 Tony Award for Best Actress in a musical.
The lavish production, filmed on stage at the London Palladium, will hit movie
theaters on November 29.
--I'm proud that we recorded it because I think it was
beautiful.
The sets looked, the theatre kind of looked like the grandness of the
sets.
It all fit together so beautifully.
And we just had a, it was a good company and I felt like I was doing something
new even though it was a it was something I had...
It felt very different to do it in 2018 than it had
in 2015.
In many ways.
--The King and I also reunited O'Hara with friend Ruth Ann Miles, taking
on the part of Lady Thiang, which won her a Tony on Broadway, just months after surviving
the accident that killed her young daughter and unborn baby.
--What was it like reconnecting with her and watching her do the performance and getting
on stage?
--It was beautiful.
I'm, you know, I think Bart She kind of really
forced her, in a way, I mean she you know, to just get up and come.
And she did, and I'm sure it wasn't easy.
But she did, and she showed up and she was gorgeous.
["Getting to Know You" from The King and I]
--[Kelli sings] Getting to like you, getting
to help you...
--You said you don't really like plot out your career.
Are there moments where you're like, Wow.
I just want to sort of living the joy of something like this.
--Exactly.
You want to challenge yourself all the time to do a lot of different things.
I find myself right now in my life in particular
trying to take hold of my career a little bit, do more television and
film.
And in those things, I play very dark.
I play mothers of... 13 Reasons,
I played a mother who had lost a daughter to suicide.
I'm doing those things.
I'm reaching into that part of my soul.
I had a very heavy summer, you know?
The idea that I'm gonna go and do musical comedy for a while, it's actually not just
a career move.
It's gonna be a an emotional move that is good for my soul.
--When she takes to the stage of Studio 54 next February, O'Hara will be reunited with
Will Chase as Fred Graham.
They first performed Kiss Me Kate together at a 2016 benefit
concert for Roundabout Theatre Company.
--I just laugh any time Will Chase walks into the room.
--Because he's so ridiculous-looking
--He's ugly and stupid and not funny.
And we have a great time together.
We've worked together many times now, and we've done
it for one night, like you said, and so kind of we know that we have the
chemistry.
We know the energy.
And it felt worthy of doing it on the stage for a
short run.
And, so, Studio 54 you know, it's gonna be, it's gonna be fantastic.
And I hope a little breath of fresh air.
--I can't wait.
--I'm, I'm starting the deep breaths right now.