Tony Nominee Q&A with Orfeh
By: BWW Jun. 10, 2007
Best Featured Actress in a Musical nominee Orfeh received Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations as well for her work in Legally Blonde. She started her career in the music world as founder and lead singer of the platinum pop sensation Or-N-More on EMI Records. Their single "Everyotherday" was a hit both stateside and abroad. As a songwriter, she is represented by Warner Chappell publishing and is also a Grammy nominator. On Broadway, Orfeh originated Annette in Saturday Night Fever, played Rusty in Footloose and was one of the stars of Fascinating Rhythm. Off-Broadway: Janis in Love, Janis; Pippi in The Great American Trailer Park Musical.
I was watching, my husband made me watch and it was a little nerve-wracking. I was watching, but I wasn't going to. He said that you don't want to have to watch it back. You want to know if you were nominated that you heard it live, not that you heard from other people and then had to go watch it back.
I'm sure you were thrilled to have watched it then given that you made it!
You never know, and now I'm happy, but imagine if it had gone the other way? I feel awful because I know absolutely how awful it is when it goes the other way so I'm just grateful that it didn't happen again.
A lot has been said about how hard you worked to get this part…
I fought for the part, and I feel like it was worth fighting for in hindsight.
What has the journey been like so far with the show?
The journey has been unbelievable and I'm having a really good time. This is all just gravy, it's gravy.
And you'll keep enjoying that gravy through June 10th at least…
I'm kind of ready for June 11th because I'd like to see how it all turns out, and to wear a nice dress and go have a good night.
In this show particularly, you really get to show off what a creature of the stage you are, are you having as much fun up on that stage as you look like you are?
This is my 7th show, so for me, I kind of don't know how to function when I'm not in a show if you know what I mean. I feel like I should be in a show and I should be moving so for me as a person it feels like a really good thing.
So no regrets about coming to the stage from the music business?
Luckily and thankfully since I came from the music business because it's tough to come in to the theatre business and even harder to go the other way because the entertainment business doesn't really know our crazy world of musical theatre.
How did the pop background prepare you?
The pop energy is from having so many massive audiences of tens of thousands of people a night so I think that being on stage is something that I'm very comfortable doing. I feel like people can see that I'm comfortable up there and that welcomes them in. For me, it comes from experience, because it's a warm comfort to be up on stage. When you're younger with kids screaming your name and you're performing in front of huge audiences, it's a great experience. I'm lucky that I wasn't born with the stage fright gene at all so I'm comfy and happy there and I feel like I'm where I belong!
Photo by Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.
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