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Chicago agrees with Broadway star Kelli O’Hara. In November, she received the Sarah Siddons Society Award and in April, she performed three special concerts at Steppenwolf Theatre.
The Sarah Siddons Society Award is presented annually to an individual who has achieved outstanding artistic achievement in theater. A Tony Award winner, O’Hare has been nominated eight times for that honor.
Next up, O’Hara will join fellow Broadway leading lady Sutton Foster for a spectacular evening of song at this year’s Ravinia Festival gala concert on July 13, along with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop, Ravinia’s chief conductor. On the program will be works by George Gershwin, Adam Guettel, Frank Loesser, Cole Porter, Stephen Sondheim and Jeanine Tesori.
Elsewhere, O’Hara appeared in the sold-out run of the children’s musical “Finn” at the Kennedy Center, in Washington, D.C. She had planned to go on the musical’s national tour, but it was canceled suddenly (due to political issues, some have claimed). Its creators have acknowledged that the musical could be read as a metaphor for the LGBTQ+ experience.
In addition, O’Hara returned for the third season of the Emmy-nominated HBO series “The Gilded Age,” in which she portrays wealthy socialite Aurora Fane.
Before her concerts at Steppenwolf earlier this year, O’Hara gave an interview to the Windy City Times. The following is an excerpt:
What was it like to receive the Sarah Siddons Society Award?
It was a beautiful event and so generous of them. It was the evening after the election, so it was a shared space of artistic hope and love, which was sort of a balm and a nice night. Several performers did a retrospective of my songs, and I was weeping the whole time.
Is there one person who changed the trajectory of your life?
Florence Birdwell, my voice teacher in Oklahoma, definitely was. I could name so many people, but she was a huge influence on me. I learned about her when I was 5 years old and knew she taught at Oklahoma City University. When it came time to pick colleges, I had that in the back of my head. She was not just an acting and singing mentor, but my life coach as well.
How do you decide on the songs on your set list?
I love doing solo concerts and I always have. I will put a country song, along with an original song on the list. I always have to sing something from South Pacific and The Light in the Piazza. I will do one for the audience, then one for me, and rotate that. I always think about what my audience would want. We are coming together for a shared emotional experience, and we can escape life for a few hours. If I don’t fulfill that part of the service, then I am not doing my job.
Is there a musical that you would still like to do?
It’s a great question and I think a lot of people do have that one musical that either got away or is still looming somewhere. As I get older, I think about the way to reinvent stories about women my age. We’ve never been allowed to research and go inside feminine-driven stories as older women. I’m waiting for the next one to be written. I’ve got lots of ideas, and I’m having constant meetings about such things. As I get older, I have a lot of things on my mind.
Will Finn swim again?
[After the tour was canceled], it was streamed online, and it was a star-studded cast. Michael Urie came out for two seconds to steal the show as a pufferfish. We had the original cast on stage with us, singing and dancing their hearts out. The audience just went crazy that night. We were bringing attention to a beautiful piece of art that was hurting no one and instead was possibly changing the lives of some people in positive ways. I hope it lives on, since it can’t play at the Kennedy Center.
What about your role on “The Gilded Age”?
It’s just the most wonderful group of people who are hard-working and theatrically based actors. We started it during the pandemic when we thought we had nothing. I will always think of that job with such gratitude, not only artistically but personally, because it lifted us all up out of a real fear. After the third season comes out, we will see if there will be a fourth season.
