Kelli O'Hara
Kelli O'Hara
Kelli Christine O'Hara is an American actress and singer. She has appeared on Broadway and Off-Broadway in many musicals since making her Broadway debut as a replacement in Jekyll & Hyde in 2000. A six-time Tony Award nominee, her first nomination was for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for the 2005 production of The Light in the Piazza. Her subsequent nominations were for The Pajama Game, South Pacific, Nice Work If You Can Get Itand The Bridges of Madison...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionStage Actress
Date of Birth16 April 1976
CityElk City, OK
CountryUnited States of America
I've had great opportunities to show different sides of myself, but the challenge will always be getting either people to let you do it or finding the right things to do in order to do it.
Shakespeare has great ability to skirt around a subject and portray human nature.
Some songs depend heavily on the character, but, for the most part, a great song begs for reinterpretation every time it is sung, even when in character.
Playing characters allows me to do things I may not always do, while singing in concerts allows me to really find my own voice and grow.
With a revival, you're compared to somebody else.
When I was a kid, I would sing in people's living rooms and for different little family things.
We didn't have a lot of live theater in Oklahoma. I didn't visit New York when I was growing up. I watched movie musicals, and I believed in an idealistic, idyllic version of Broadway.
To play a character is to inhabit the world and the life of that character.
I never really try to watch the movie of the things I've been in.
Everyone has these ideas, especially about the middle of the country, about people being backwards and three-toothed.
Every part has its relief when I'm done with it.
When you're pregnant, things - at least for me - get very sincere and very wholesome, and it's about family, and singing becomes about warmth.
When you step out and do a song in a musical, the easier thing to do is make it funny. But when those transitions become necessary, when they aren't camp, that, to me, is magic. I've done musical comedies and enjoyed them, but subject matter that's deeper and more realistic is always what's appealed to me most.
I don't mind talking about my family and how to balance it all. But, in today's world, we should probably be asking both women and men about work and family and how to balance the two.