BWW Interviews: Susan Egan Prepares for Broadway in Montreal Concert

Susan Egan will be performing and teaching the first of a series of concerts and master classes entitled 'Broadway in Montreal' starting next month. Egan is best known for her work as the original Belle in Beauty and the Beast and as the voice of Meg in Hercules. The concert will take place at Le centre Pierre-Péladeau on September 7th.

Q&A with Susan Egan

You did Broadway in Buenos Aires. Is it a lot different performing there then in North America?

A little bit. Musical theatre is definitely a world phenomenon now, but that's only in the last seven years or so. When I was in Buenos Aires it was great because they had Next to Normal running, they had Avenue Q and all the contemporary shows. What surprised me was how few Broadway performers go to these places, and yet the audiences there are so appreciative and marvelous. The master class was very insightful because nobody from New York had gone to work with them; they had never met a fellow actor that understood what they were doing there.

This Broadway concert and master class series is unique because it's not just a performance. The concert is a combination of the interactions with the people there.

What is the master class?

The master class is about the finding your own sound. I grew up listening to Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, and Angela Lansbury so I grew up wanting to sound like Patti and Bernadette. What I realized though is that I can't sound like that, and what makes their performances magical is their uniqueness. Often in class I'll see a girl singing something from Wicked and she's doing a Kristin Chenoweth impersonation. I've had the great luck of knowing Kristin and I've seen her in her shows [...] I get what makes her tick but I also get what theatre viewers see in her shows. What makes her great is that she is innately and authentically Kristin. By trying to mimic her you are not honouring what Kristin brought to the table. The way to honour it and capture the magic that Kristin was is to be authentically you.

Would you say the goal of the master class then is to help people find their own uniqueness?

Absolutely. Performing is a lot more than putting on a mask, or even worse trying to be what you think people want you to be.

You need to find it inside you, and that's what I do; I help them find it. I think people think directors are looking for a carbon copy, but at the end of the day Megan Hilty was not a carbon copy of Kristin Chenoweth, she was her own Glinda and became a star in her own way. You can admire people for sure, and they're worth admiring but you need to find that special thing about yourself. It takes working hard, getting the technique, and learning to sing and all that stuff but the master class is about bringing yourself to the role. The audience is that best barometer of this, if they believe you they will love it, but if they don't they will shut down.

After the master class you perform a concert, right?

I do, and the fourth wall is broken in the master class so I like to keep that wall down in the concert. I think people are surprised to learn that I'm pretty goofy and pretty funny. I also really like to share with them what it was like while I was doing shows, what it's like to break your foot on stage while doing Beauty and the Beast and keep going. I like to humanize this glamorous business , it's glamorous for sure but sometimes it's nice to take the sheen off and show what it's really like. It's really funny and the concert is very much a conversation with the audience.

Do you prefer to perform concerts or Broadway shows?

I love to put on a wig, a costume, inhabit a different world and be called something different. However out of a desire to balance my life really I left New York to get married and have kids and I didn't really want to be working during bedtime every night. I decided to do concerts full-time and what I discovered was that I actually love it. I researched a lot and thought of the concerts that I enjoyed the most and the ones that I thought of were the ones where I actually got to know the performer before the night was over. The more specific the show is the better. At the end of the day we're all just people going through life one leg at a time and it's so fun to share the journey together and the stories as well.

How do voice acting and Broadway differ for you?

Voice acting and recording taught me a lot about theatre actually because you don't have your face or expressions or body to convey emotions, it has to be all in your voice. What I realized was that the audience past row 10 can't see your face either, so it's made my voice much more expressive on stage. I like to mix up what I do it keeps things new and exciting.

If you could play any part, what would it be?

I like new things, I like there to be no road maps. I like material that was written last night. I like dissecting it and figuring it out, so I would say that the role that I would like to play most hasn't yet been written.

For more information go to www.broadwayincanada.com

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