Green tears had been flowing when Lencia Kebede made historical past final week on Broadway, changing into the primary Black actor to imagine the function of Elphaba full time within the Broadway firm of “Wicked.”
“It’s hard to even pinpoint a single emotion because I feel that it changes like every five minutes,” she instructed The Associated Press, nonetheless buzzing a day after her debut. “I woke up and I still sort of felt in the world of Oz.”
Kebede, a first-generation Ethiopian American from Los Angeles, spent 5 years touring with “Hamilton,” most not too long ago within the function of Angelica Schuyler. Stepping into “Wicked” on Tuesday marked her Broadway debut.
Kebede had already gone by an emotional wringer by the point the curtain lastly got here down. She sings the Act 1 showstopper “Defying Gravity,” taking pictures into the air and the facility of the second ripped by her.
“When the lights went off at the end of the song, I started sobbing. Not like just a gentle tear. Viscerally, I had to release,” she says.
“I really felt like I was flying, is the simplest way to put it. I felt like I’m doing it myself, though my own power — my vocal power, my emotional power, the power of all of my African ancestors.”
“If I’m flying solo/At least I’m flying free/To those who ground me, take a message back from me/Tell them how I am defying gravity,” she sang.
“Everyone deserves a chance to fly,” says Kebede. “I’m projecting this message that no matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, you deserve liberation and you deserve empowerment in the way that the character feels in that moment. It just feels like I’m taking the entire audience in my arms.”
Thank goodness it was intermission. “I needed to regroup,” she says, laughing. “My make-up artist was like, ‘Just let it out, just cry, and then we can clean it up.’”
In the viewers had been some 60 household and associates — mother and her aunts and uncles, her many cousins, her boyfriend, friends from different exhibits, her agent and casting administrators, even her faculty choir director.
“My whole family was in the audience — just everyone who I’ve ever loved, with everyone who has loved me and supported me through my life is just like under me, lifting me and holding me,” she says.
“It was just so important to me to have people there that I could share this moment with, so I could say to their faces, ’I couldn’t be here without a piece of your heart that you gave me.’”
The recognition of the Cynthia Erivo-led film hasn’t dampened the urge for food for the Broadway model, which opened in 2003 with songs by Stephen Schwartz and a guide by Winnie Holzman. Over Christmas, it took in a staggering $5 million over 9 performances, marking the very best weekly gross in historical past for any Broadway present.
Kebede joins a sisterhood of green-clad Black ladies who’ve performed Elphaba, an inventory that features Saycon Sengbloh and Lilli Cooper, each Broadway standbys; Brandi Chavonne Massey, a Broadway understudy; and Alexia Khadime, a full-time West End Elphaba.
Others who’ve performed the function over time embrace Shoshana Bean, Stephanie J. Block, Jessica Vosk, Eden Espinosa, Ana Gasteyer and, in fact, Idina Menzel, who gained a Tony Award within the function in 2004.
Kebede graduated from Occidental College in 2016 with a double main of diplomacy & world affairs and politics, intending on a profession in regulation or public coverage. By her senior yr, she had an itch she wanted to scratch.
“I just had this creative craving in terms of storytelling in the theatrical way that I was missing,” she says. “So I sat my mother down and I was like, ‘Look, I think I need just a couple years to explore this creative endeavor.’”
Her first skilled job was a manufacturing of “Memphis” at Musical Theatre West after which a stint at Tokyo Disney and touring in “Rent.” In addition to years on the street with “Hamilton,” Kebede additionally sang backup for Beyoncé throughout her Coachella rehearsals.
“The rigorous nature of touring, I think, prepared me immensely for this,” she says. “I do feel very equipped — physically, vocally, emotionally. I feel like I know how to take care of my body and my mind, how I need to cool down emotionally after such an intense experience for three hours.”
On debut evening, Kebede tried to maintain a set of psychological screenshots, a reel of faces and emotions. As she turned to get backstage, she was feeling the love.
“My grandmother and my father passed when I was in high school and I just took a moment to connect with my angels,” she says. “It was, oh God, it was electric.”
Family got here backstage after the present for photographs and a tour, she was toasted at a close-by bar by associates, she lastly ate one thing after which bought dwelling to attempt to sleep.
“My battery was dead. I mean, I couldn’t even move. I couldn’t move my face. I was just drinking my tea, playing calming jazz. I had to just turn it off,” she says.
And then she needed to do it yet again the subsequent evening.
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