Laura Heywood Interviews

Nick Cordero is a Tony nominated actor (Bullets Over Broadway, Waitress, A Bronx Tale). I sat down with him a few years ago at Build Series in New York City.

I chose this interview from the archives because I want you to know how great Nick is, and for you to keep him in your thoughts. Because my friend is Nick is very sick — he is fighting for his life, in critical condition, in the ICU as a result of Covid-19.

He has a 10-month old baby; his wife is understandably distraught; and they are asking everyone everywhere to pray — whatever that looks like — for Nick’s recovery.

I interviewed him when starring in the iconic role of Sonny in A Bronx Tale: The Musical, written by and inspired by the life of Chazz Palminteri.

With Nick so very much on my mind right now, and in the hearts of the whole Broadway community, I am reaching back to our interview as part of my own prayer process.

Please keep Nick and his family in the forefront of your minds, along with the families of everyone else suffering from this horrible pandemic.

To all the first responders, heath care professionals, and essential workers: I thank you.

To everyone listening: Stay Safe, Stay Healthy, Stay Home.

To Nick and his wife Amanda and their baby Elvis: My heart is with you.

NOTE: WHISPER HOUSE WAS CANCELED THE DAY BEFORE ITS FIRST PREVIEW DUE TO COVID-19. WE ARE ALL HOLDING HOPE THAT IT WILL BE PRODUCED AT A LATER DATE. 

Kyle Jarrow was nominated for a Tony Award for his brilliant, fully original book of a musical for Spongebob Squarepants: The Musical. His current project is Whisper House, with songs by Duncan Sheik,  off-Broadway at 59E59 in New York City. Kyle also leads the indie-pop-rock band Sky Pony with his wife, Tony nominee Lauren Worsham (A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder), writes for television and movies, and he's a dad.

Steven Sater is a Tony, Grammy, and Olivier Award winning lyricist, librettist, writer, poet and much more. He is the man responsible for Spring Awakening, the show that inspired the passion that led to Laura Heywood's online alter ego, @BroadwayGirlNYC. His new novel, Alice By Heart, is a gorgeous and poetic expansion of the world behind the musical of the same name. Hardly a re-relling of Alice in Wonderland, the story instead is about a different Alice, down a different kind of hole – a lost pubescent girl in the panic of 1940s London, seeking refuge in an abandoned Tube station for herself and her sick best friend. The other children there do seem to oddly resemble the characters from her favorite Lewis Carroll novel, and the more terrifying the war becomes above ground, the more solace she takes in retelling the story she knows by heart to Alfred, the best friend who is succumbing slowly to tuberculosis. As a boy, Steven Sater himself was very sick – confined in quarantine most of his young life – and books were his refuge, too. So as we read the intertwined stories of these two Alices and the plight of struggling youth – we are, in a way, learning Steven’s story, too.

Featuring the music of Bob Dylan, with a book and direction by Connor Macpherson, The Girl From the North Country is now playing at the Belasco Theatre on Broadway.

In Fall 2018, Laura Heywood sat down with three of the original principals from the Public Theater’s production of the show — the production that has transferred to Broadway this season.

Kimber Elayne Sprawl plays Marianne, a nineteen year old black woman raised to adulthood by a white family that owns and runs a boardinghouse, the setting for the musical. Jeanette Bayardelle is a tenant at the boarding house, a widow with a special relationship to the proprieter.  And the third voice you’ll hear is Sydney James Harcourt, an actor who departed the production after the Public run — his role, a transient boxer with a complicated past, is no played on Broadway by Austin Scott.

LHI will revisit The Girl From the North Country with new content, once the production is officially open on Broadway (it’s currently in previews) — and for now, let this archival conversation whet your appetite for a beautiful new Broadway musical.

Ben Crawford is currently and creepily embodying Broadway’s favorite malformed and maladjusted romantic hero: The Phantom of the Opera.Is hero the right word? He’s certainly the leading man. But that Phantom, he’s a dark dude. And I can’t wait to dig into his complexities with the actor who brings him to life on Broadway eight shows a week.Ben Crawford has been playing The Phantom for nearly two years, and he brings the same freshness every performance that he did when he first took on this “monster” of a role.Believe it or not, The Phantom of the Opera just celebrated its 32nd anniversary on Broadway. Only 16 actors have been cast as the Phantom in that time, so this is an elite club. It is an "unparalleled delight" to welcome Ben Crawford to Laura Heywood Interviews!

Tamar Greene and Fergie Philippe are two of the newest cast members in HAMILTON on Broadway! Tamar, with a deep baritone and linebacker physique, is playing the larger-than-life George Washington — and Fergie is James Madison, our country’s fourth president, as well as a youthful, hilarious Hercules Mulligan! Rather than dwell on the current administration — yikes — we are celebrating Presidents Day in true BroadwayGirl style… with the Presidents of Hamilton on Broadway. 

Morgan James has five Broadway credits, five solo albums — including her newest, “Memphis Magnetic” — and literally tens of millions of views on YouTube. Her most impressive trait, however, is that she never assumed that talent was enough. There is zero entitlement in this woman — instead of taking her natural gift for granted, she’s used it like a key to an endless library of learning, growing, enhancing, and redefining her own standards of success. 

Ann Harada's resume is, without a doubt, impressive. On Broadway she has sung Rodgers and Hammerstein, Boublil & Schonberg, Dolly Parton, Ahrens & Flaherty, and Robert Lopez, plus appeared in David Henry Hwang’s celebrated play M. Butterfly in her Broadway acting debut. On screen she has appeared in Smash, Gotham, 30 Rock, The Jim Gaffigan Show, Sex and the Cityvthe digital series Indoor Boys. She is currently starring as the iconic "Pile of Poo" off-Broadway in Emojiland: The Musical.

Eden Espinosa is known for playing Elphaba in Wicked, Brooklyn in Brooklyn: The Musical, and Maureen in the closing company of Rent. She recently returned from playing Trina on the National Tour of Falsettos and is originating the title role of the polish painter Lempicka in a new musical by Matt Gould. She will be playing the Narrator, alongside Alex Newell and Jessica Vosk, in Lincoln Center’s all-star 50th Anniversary Celebration of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Her album Revelation is out now, and she is embarking upon a residency at The Green Room 42 in a series she calls “Unplugged and Unplanned.” 

Story Pirates “pairs the best actors, comedians and musicians in the world with some of the most creative educators, and puts them together to create real collaborations with kids.” Original stories, written entirely from kids’ imaginations, become huge-scale production numbers — sketch comedy shows, over-the-top musicals, masterfully produced albums — the kind of wild imaginative art that only a kid can think of, and only the best-of-the-best grownups can execute. Benjamin "Jamie" Salka is Story Pirates' co-creator, President and CEO.