Welcome to "Broadway Sandwich." We're hanging out with your favorite Broadway
performers to find out what they do during the few short hours sandwiched between
their matinee and evening performances. Join me as we find out what makes up the
meat in this "Broadway Sandwich!"
I'm at the August Wilson Theater, home of "Mean Girls."
Today we're meeting up with Kate Rockwell. Kate plays Karen, a member
of The Plastics - the most popular girls at North Shore High.
Kate! Hi! It's like 85 degrees. Where do you want to go?
If it's okay, first I'd like to eat something. Of course, that's what I like to do too.
As soon as I'm done performing. All right. Let's do it. I love it.
Ta Da! Here we are
They have a separate space in the back called "Side Piece,"which I love.
Excuse me. It sounds so exclusive. Yep! Exactly.
Have you been to Meatball Shop? You kind of build your own. N-5. E-16
I'm going to order a salad today. I feel like being healthy. It's almost like bingo.
I was going to say Battleship, but...also Bingo.
You have enough calories to like get to the next show but it has to be like enough
stuff that you can not feel full. Thank you. So when did you hear that the movie
was becoming a musical and get involved in all that? A long time ago. I heard
there was an announcement actually that was me that she, Tina [Fey], confirmed that they
were in development early early on that they wanted to make a musical they
thought it would sing well,. yeah. I was doing bring it on at the time and I
remember saying to my friend Sheldon who was in the show with me, I said I would Tonya
Harding people to get this job. I was obsessed with the movie. I mean all of
that vernacular that she created. Fetch, "You Go Glen Coco,"... you know, "Boo you
Whore," "Get in you losers were going shopping," all of Wednesdays we wear pink all of that stuff.
so what was it like working with Tina
Fey on this script? It was an absolute dream every minute of it was. She's been
my idol my whole career. I've always looked up to her and I've always wanted
to work with her. She was in that room every single day it
was not like 'oh I'm the celebrity of attach my name to this and I'm gonna
show up for the first rehearsal and for opening and that's it.' She never left.
She was with us all the time
Thank you so much. Um, oh my god, that
looks so good. So, okay you've been known to play these incredible comedy roles
over the years. I've done a lot of comedy. Lots and lots of comedy. How do you
think you got to be the funny girl in the show?
You know, gosh, I think for one I love musical comedy, and
I love comedy in general, but I should say, like my my like wheelhouse is
musical comedy. Um I love making people laugh. I love it when I leave my job at
night I feel better than when I came in.
So this was delicious. Thank you for
bringing me here. what's next?
So I share my dressing room
Ashley Park, who plays Gretchen, and we have a little tradition after the show we
like to have a glass of wine, while we like, cool down, stretch, gossip whatever.
and we're out of wine so it's my turn to go get it
so I was thinking little wine shop around the corner. We might go grab a
couple bottles?
Perfect. Let's stock up
So, how do you know so much about wine?
I took a little bit of time off from
theater and I worked in a wine shop in the East Village. I went to the WS UTSA
which is the wine and spirits Education Trust
it's an international school. It is here in New York. It was awesome
this is out of Northern Italy. You swirl-- why do we swirl-- we swirl it so
that we can smell. Okay, because the big part of drinking wine is
smelling it. So this is a burgundy, and then of course a Rose. A Rose a season yeah
so just to debunk any myths that might be out there there is no such thing as a
rose a grape there is no rose a great sorry everybody is me over and grapes
red wine just like these guys well thank you so much for sharing
so it we're walking up to the marquee of your show huh in high school or in
middle school whenever you thought about what would it be like if I was on
Broadway the day that they told us the marquee was going up we round at the
corner we know all of our cameras and all we're taking pictures and ice
immediately started being on Broadway is one thing yeah being on a marquee is
another so I have a little bit of time before we have to like start prepping
for the next show do you want to come backstage window we have a window which
means on Saturday matinees when you're like miserable and tired the Sun comes
in and it really needs while you're alive we keep all the fan art that's
said to us I mean people have sent some incredible incredible things so we have
in school tradition this is something that actually my dad started with me
when I made my Broadway debut so when I went on for Margo for the first time in
Legally Blonde he bought us a bottle of champagne and put the tech kept the cork
and wrote the date on it and I still have it in my house so I started I'd do
that with most of the people that I share a space with now anytime there's a
big event so this is the champagne from overnight 2018
hey girls so just some gray some neutrals the lavender pleather two-piece
is my favorite color in the show this little doo-dah would be my favorite I
have two different pairs of Sofia Webster's Jimmy Choos that I danced in
this is all from getting caught in this day
doesn't sheep eautiful I know August Wilson was built in 1922 yeah
it has 12 just over 1,200 seats little side effect you have to have 501 seats
to be considered a Broadway theater and the largest is about 1900 and we're like
smack in the middle this is the only space there is there is nowhere else so
we don't have a wide open everything this is our bathroom set that rolls out
on the stage a couple of times now every time we have a celebrity come to the
show have them sign it oh really cause like Amy Poehler Carol
Burnett meanwhile across my mind this is so cool
so this wall here when Jersey Boys was here for literally 13 years they did a
tally of all their shows but what they did that was so cool if they did it per
day not for show so there are these gaps where there should have been shows so
it's like a big old theater history mark like I'm pretty sure this is the
hurricane and I'm pretty sure this is the stagehand strike and I just oh
because it's not it's not me and girls if we don't look at this this is a page
that we frequent a lot as you can see it okay and coffin has Harry now Harry
doughnuts never met a carp didn't like ugly cow that's obviously Taylor's and
then this was brand new I don't know where this is from Mac has not been here
before so somebody's been adding to the burn book
j-rok well you are a star you're unbelievable in the show thank you for
showing us this incredible theater backstage and join our show yes you have
a great second show and I'm gonna head out this way
should I do a tombe pas de bourree Ranjha take off the stage I don't know
what that means but probably by