Quick Q&A: Kelli Barrett

I had the great pleasure of talking with Kelli Barrett, now making her Broadway debut in Manhattan Theatre Club’s acclaimed revival of The Royal Family.

What was your big “I want to be an actress” moment?

It was back in Virginia Beach, I was 13 or 14 and I went to see a production of Merrily We Roll Along. I had been taking voice lessons since I was 11, training classically, and doing dramatic interpretations for my family in my living room. I hadn’t put my finger on how to combine the two before then. I went to Governor’s School for The Performing Arts and was going to go into their Vocal program but the day before I was to start I called and said “Do you still have an opening to study Musical Theatre? That’s what I want and I’m not going to let anyone tell me differently.”

Were you feeling pressured to stick with the Voice program?

I felt a little bit of pressure to go into Opera because some people think that it’s a more respected art form – that’s not what I think by any means. I was raised by a single mother and she met my stepfather when I was 9 – they have been terribly supportive of me no matter what I wanted to do. When it came to my craft I never felt like I oould make a wrong decision.

What was at the top of your list of qualities to convey about Gwen, your character in The Royal Family?

The most important thing about the show is the family. For me it was really important that Gwen be a piece of that puzzle, that she be her mother’s daughter and her grandmother’s granddaughter. I did a lot of studying of Jan (Maxwell) and the way she was creating Julie and of Rosemary (Harris) and the way she was creating Fanny, making sure that Gwen came from them, and then adding another element coming from a new generation behind them. And I wanted to make sure that even though she’s this up and coming ‘20’s star and the period and style are very important that she be a real person that the audience could connect to. I do believe that the conflict that arises in the play is funny because it’s real. Thqt conflict is something that actors struggle with; I didn’t want it to be superfluous. I did a lot of preparation on my own time to make sure that it would be real for me on stage and that the confrontation with the family on stage would be a real event.

Do you relate to Gwen’s struggle between career and personal life?

I do. When I first read the play I thought “I’ve had this exact conversation with a boyfriend!” I’ve been lucky enough to always date people who were supportive of me, and because we live in modern society people understand that acting is a profession, but I’ve definitely had the talk: “What are we gonna do if we want to get married or have a family, you’re gonna be working or filming with other men.” That conversation has definitely happened and more than once. I was in a serious relationship starting at age 17 for 5 years so yes, it does ring true in my own life.

Did you know you’d be working with this cast when you auditioned or did you find out later?

I saw Ana Gasteyer at my callback so that was one indication. But the biggest lightbulb moment was “oh it’s Doug Hughes!” We all know he’s known to do phenomenal work loaded with integrity and intelligence. I’d done a reading with him on a Maury Yeston piece a few months earlier – just working with him for a week on that I thought I’ve got to work with him on something in a big way. When I read the play it was one of these moments you don’t get very often when I really wanted it. I’m good about calming my nerves but I was really nervous. I found out who the cast was and I was weeping because it’s all you could ever want. I just knew it would be the learning experience of a lifetime surrounded by these inspiring actors. And acting aside, they are wonderful people.

What makes Doug Hughes a good director?

It’s a one two punch with Doug; everything he says is loaded with fact and intelligence. He’s not a careless person, even with the way he gives you notes. He understands the weight of theatre and although he’s not an actor he understands and respects the craft. He’s been saying on this that for him there’s something about that stage door and once you walk through it it’s magic and to be revered. I couldn’t imagine anyone else directing The Royal Family right now.

photo: Joan Marcus

Did everyone work together on making the physicality true to the period?

We worked on it individually but we had a great assistant director named David who was incredible about doing research on the period and how people moved. He would watch my performance and say “putting two hands up here is less period than we’d like, if you put one up and one on the hip, that’s actually more indicative of the ‘20s”. I looked at a lot of Carole Lombard and her physicalizations, especially for when Gwen throws her tantrum, and I watched Jan and infused some of her physical vocabulary into what I was doing.

This is something that was said to us that I thought was really poignant: people are people, and for as long as we’ve been alive there’s been similar ways that we’ve been moving. We do certain things instinctively to express ourselves: when we get frustrated we ball our fists, we will jerk our arms when we are emphatic. Those things don’t change, just the ease with which we do them. This royal acting family would make it just a little more grandiose because that’s who they are. Once we got on the stairs on John Lee Beatty’s incredible set it really brought some of that to life.

Tell me if I’m wrong, but I would imagine that getting into the costumes helped with the physicality also.

Tremendously so! I was working early on on my posture but it wasn’t until I put the clothes on that I thought “Oh! I can do this wih my arms!” or “look at the line of the leg”. One of my costumes has this swooping neckline and just the way it elongated my neck told me how to move. I’m very big on costumes and shoes – the height and shape of the heel makes a big difference in how you stand.

Your physicality in Rock of Ages last year seems completely opposite to what you do in The Royal Family. Does it feel that way to you too?

Night and day! My mother very much rocked the ’80’s with her look when I was growing up, so it was closer to me in my understanding. In the second act of Rock of Ages when Sherrie comes into her body it was all about being overtly sexy and letting it rip. So yes, I had a lot of work to do. I’m relatively new to the scene – this is my Broadway debut and my first undertaking of a straight play – so I did all I could not to be the oddball out up there with these wonderful seasoned actors.

Which came first after Rock of Ages: this particular play, or the desire to do a straight play?

I was ready to not sing for a while. Rock of Ages off-Broadway was difficult because we were doing a 7 pm and a 10 pm show on Fridays and then a 2 pm and an 8 pm on Saturdays. The turnaround was killer. Looking back, I don’t know how they got away with that. Plus I was doing readings at the time that were rock and I thought “I want to have an instrument in a couple of years!” When you’re originating a role things can come down on you but from what I’ve heard all the Sherrie’s going in there have had concerns about the demanding nature of the role. We’re not machines, we’re people.

Once you decided you wanted to do a play, did you encounter a prejudice coming from the world of musicals?

There is a prejudice and part of wanting to do a play was to break that and say “I’m an actress.” Many colleges have musical theatre acting programs as opposed to just acting – I was fortunate to go to a school where we had classes with the Acting majors, doing Meisner and Stanislavski and then infusing those lessons into our musicality. I read plays all the time, everything from Williams to Moliere to Durang. I love Chekhov.

What role do you most want to do?

There are so many. It may sound corny but I would love to play Shelby in Steel Magnolias; I don’t think it’s as thankless a role as people think. Ever since I was little I wanted to play Belle in Beauty and The Beast – not the grittiest role but I think it would be fun. One day I’d love to be Mama Rose in Gypsy – who wouldn’t? But the concept of doing new work is also thrilling to me, so maybe my dream role doesn’t exist yet.