Allie Trimm’s Wicked Journey to Playing Glinda on Broadway

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
What is Up, Runner Gang, Welcome back to Post run High.
Today's guest is a Broadway star, the one and only
Ali Trim, who's currently playing Glinda in Wicket on Broadway.
She's been performing since she was a kid, from thirteen
the musical To Buye by Bertie, and even a supporting
role in the Marvelous Missus Masel, and now she's taking
the stage in one of the most iconic roles in theater.
What I love most about this conversation is that Ali

(00:25):
isn't just talented, she knows how to do the work.
She's been showing up, putting in the reps, and growing
with this industry since she was a young girl. This
podcast is all about inspiring conversations that start with movement,
because we believe movement opens people up in ways nothing
else does. And today we went for a little run
slash walk through Brooklyn before sitting down. In this conversation,
we talked about what it was like growing up in

(00:46):
the spotlight, the effects that early success can have on
child stars, and the mindset it takes to stay grounded
through the chaos and magic of Broadway. Ali's story is
such a beautiful reminder of what can happen when you
just keep moving, both on on stage and all. And
for my fellow Wicked fans, a few months ago, you
might remember we had Mary Kate Morrissey on the show
who played Alphaba on Broadway. So getting to sit down

(01:08):
with both Witches of Oz has been a total dream
come true for me. So you guys will have to
let me know who else from the cast you want
me to run and talk with next.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
We've got great.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Episodes coming up, so please make sure you follow the
show wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
All right, let's get our post run High going. Ali Trim,
Welcome to Post Run High. I'm so happy to be here.
I am so happy to be sitting down with you.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
We've talked about this a little bit off camera, but
I have had Mary Kate Morrissey, one of the former
alpha buzz on Wicked, on with me before, so to
be able to sit down with the current.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Glinda on Broadway is just incredible. Thank you. Yeah, I'm
so excited to be here, and I'm so glad that
you got to interview Mka. She's awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah, we get a little taste of the world and
now we're going to enter into the World, Linda. Yeah,
and I just want to say congratulations on landing the
lead role.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Thank you. It's so crazy, Like sometimes I wake up
and I think, oh man, another day, I got to
get my voice ready, got to get my body ready.
And then sometimes I wake up and I'm like, wait
a second, I have to really stay present for this
year because it's going to go by like that and
you spend your whole life working towards one thing, and

(02:31):
I just have to keep reminding myself to like actually
enjoy it because it's a hard job and I care
a lot about doing it well. So I'm trying to
find the.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Balance of Yeah, of course it's like you're exhausted, but
at the same time, it's this crazy exciting period of
your life and you have to enjoy every second of it.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
We started this show with a walk right before this
guy's go watch our walk on my.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Instagram and Ali's Instagram.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
This show is all about movement physically, mentally, emotional, and
just with people on the pursuit of greatness, which you
so are an example of that. But I want to
start with movement physically because as Glinda on Broadway, you're
moving a lot the Gershwin Theater is one of the
oldest theaters on Broadway. It's a raked stage. You guys
are constantly running around. You've got to keep your voice right.

(03:19):
You've got to physically have the stamina to be running
and singing on stage. So like, what does movement look
like in your life? How do you prioritize it off stage?
And yeah, just walk us through that.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
I kind of trained leading up to the show. I
had a break between being with the show as the
Glinda standby and then coming in full time. So in
my time away, first of all, I didn't know if
I would ever come back to the show. I did
re audition for the job, but once I found out
I was going to be coming back, I kind of
had like, Okay, I've got three months to get some

(03:51):
routine ready and to get my body and my voice ready.
And I did that as best as I could. But
then once you start the eighth show schedule, I felt like,
oh gosh, this is where that routine really comes in
handy and it's hard to maintain. But for me, a
lot of my outside of the show life is very

(04:11):
gentle and slow, especially right now I'm like three months
into the contract, and I've already had like two injuries,
so it's definitely took you know, it's shaken up my
body a little bit. Like you said, the stage is raked,
which means it's a like a slight incline, and then
you're in heels, and then you're in these really heavy

(04:32):
dresses and costumes, and you're just running around for two
and a half hours or like a little more than that,
sometimes twice a day. So it is just kind of
like a full on workout. It's a lot of cardio too.
Your heart rate is up, the adrenaline is pumping, so
I personally, I don't have a ton of steam left
over on the beginning or the end to like really

(04:55):
move my body. But I have to do something gentle
otherwise everything will just kind of like harden and sees
up over time. So I'm still kind of figuring it out, honestly.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
I mean, it totally makes sense. Also, I feel like
the performance is enough of a workout. You don't need
to be doing cardio outside of running around for two
hours on stage and singing and dancing, and you guys
literally train like professional athletes.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
I feel like, yeah, especially singing, I mean that's been
what my biggest focus has been on is my vocal
health with the show, because Glinda is kind of all
over the vocal map. She's like opens the show in
these super high, beautiful color of tourist soprano notes and
then pretty quickly shifts gears into a little bit more

(05:42):
of a belty spoken singing range. And then by the
end of the show's she's holding the alto notes, so
she kind of covers the whole map, and she got range,
She's got range, and she's got like a huge emotional arc,
so she's got Like to play Glinda for those three hours,

(06:03):
you really do have to put your heart into it,
otherwise it just looks and feels phony. And I have
not figured out how to do a show where I
don't really feel that I'm in it. I've literally been
given the advice to like find a way to do
a show sustainably so that you can maintain, you know,

(06:24):
some ease, and the audience can't tell the difference, But
in my mind, I'm like, yes they can, like if
I'm phoning it in at all or just marking it
or like going through going through the motions at all,
I just feel like everyone's going to see it, and
so it doesn't work for me. I can't like figure

(06:44):
it out. It's like all or nothing. And that's been
another thing too, is I've been like, if I don't
feel that I have the all, I just call out
and rest because I assume, okay, my body probably needs
to rest or something must be wrong if I don't
have my all. So I don't even know. I don't
know if that's the right way to go about it.
But I care about the show so much, and I

(07:05):
care about the quality of the performance so much that
I've noticed like, if I don't think I can deliver
exactly what I want, then I would rather let the
stand by, who you know, I was the stand by
for a long time, just do a great show. So
I'm learning a lot, yeah, learning a lot about my

(07:26):
what this means about my perfectionism and what this means
about being flexible as an artist.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
I don't know, no, and I feel like that's so important,
and that's why the standbys are there for you, right
to be able to pick up when you are having
those off days, and like you're human, you're allowed to
have those days. But for the most part, you are
the one performing and it is a whole, like a
huge hole on you, guys, emotionally and mentally, and I
love hearing about you saying that you have to get
into character and really feel like you are Glinda during

(07:56):
those three hours. I said two hours before running around stage,
we have to call out it's three It's a long show,
and long show that extra hour is taxing. We're going
to get into all things Wicked in a bit, but
I want to start off this podcast also by just
learning your full story, because guys, Ali is one of
the most impressive people that I think I've ever sat

(08:17):
down with.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
You and Mary Kate, I.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
Told you when we were walking, But I love so
much getting to sit down with performers, especially Broadway stars.
And I know you've done a lot of on screen
work too. Let's start with the early life of Ali.
Where did you grow up and what was your childhood like, I.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Grew up in the city called Escondido. It's north of
San Diego, so southern California, and I've started theater right
away as a kid. I was always singing, and I
think I always joke that my parents probably got tired
of my loud, you know, belting. Annie in the shower
and they were like, let's put her in community theater.

(08:55):
So I did start theater really really young, and my
life started out very nor and then by the time
I was nine, I was doing professional theater. So things
did kind of take a turn young in life where
I was suddenly like the one kid in you know,
a real production with all adults, and I was learning

(09:16):
harmony is, learning how to read music, learning how to
do an eight show a week schedule as a child,
and that did shape my childhood a lot, Like, Yeah,
it just influenced the way that you think of free
time or you think of what does fun mean to
you when you're a kid, Like.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
It goes from being your hobby and your sport to
being literally your identity and how you show up in
the world a lot of ways.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, And I was like being pulled out of school
to do these shows or I was pulled out of
school to drive to LA for auditions, so things just
kind of like got kind of weird really quickly, and
I loved it. I mean, I was like really enjoying
it all. And then when I was thirteen years old,

(10:04):
I auditioned for Jason Robert Brown's musical called thirteen, and
I got that job. So it was kind of my
first big non San Diego production that I did, and
that was on Broadway in two thousand and eight. So
I moved to New York, my family moved here. We
didn't really know how long it would last or what
it all meant, but it ended up being quite short.

(10:28):
It was like a three or four month run, and
then it closed and moved back to San Diego. So
for those couple of years, it was kind of like
in and out of being a professional performer and then
like being in my public high school with my friends
and kind of balancing identities and trying to figure out

(10:51):
who I am as a young person. I look back
in those days and I'm like, man, I had no
idea who I was, what I was doing, and I
was just like winging it, you know.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
I mean, those experiences shaped you so much, and I'm sure,
as you said, like, they taught you so much. Yes,
I love knowing how dedicated your parents were too. And
you know the way when you got the role on thirteen.
For those three to four months, you guys moved to
New York. Let's talk a little bit about the sacrifice
that goes into it family wise, like what did your
family dynamic look like at that time?

Speaker 2 (11:25):
And like how did you guys make it work? Yeah?
I mean because I was so young, so much of
it went over my head. And it wasn't that I
was ungrateful. It just was that I didn't know how
rent was being paid, how that I didn't know what
was going on. But my parents did sacrifice a lot.
My parents and my two younger siblings, who at that

(11:45):
time were like five and nine, we all moved to
New York and the show was short lived, but it's
not It's hard to move a family to New York
for like three months. So we moved and my siblings
went into school here in the city, and I was
doing homeschool because we were working full time and you
couldn't really be in school at the same time. And

(12:10):
I remember my dad traveling because he still worked in
San Diego. The following year, I did a show called
by Vibratie on Broadway, and we did the same thing
all over again. That time. My parents asked my siblings,
do you guys want another New York adventure? And they
were like, we're good, We'll just stay here. So it
was a little bit different the second go around, which

(12:32):
I kind of liked because I felt like at that point,
I was fifteen and I was like sometimes alone in
an apartment in New York, and I felt very adult
and very self sufficient. And again I look back, and
I'm like, what, I didn't know what I was doing
at all, But there was a lot of a lot
of sacrifice that went into that, and beyond that, my parents.

(12:53):
You know, I wouldn't have been able to do any
of the things that I did at that point in
my career if not for the hours that my parents
drove me to auditions, to rehearsals, to voice lessons that
they paid for for me. Like, I had a lot
of support and privilege that my parents could kind of

(13:17):
see that I wanted to do this and then encourage
encourage it for me.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
But it's so nice hearing that story and like hearing
what goes into it, not only as you an individual
that's like doing these roles, training your voice, right, but
it's also the support system is so important, and I
feel like it's so good for people listening that want
to get into theater or have kids that want to
get into theater, and they're trying to figure out, well,
what do I need to be doing to set my
daughter or son up for success here because they have

(13:43):
that it factor and I want them to chase their dreams,
you know, And it's cool knowing that you're like listen,
like this is a team sport and it's going to
take an army, but you know it's worth it. Back
in those years, like when you were a teenager and
landing these massive roles and want to get to buy
by Bertie, what was your parents like north Star for you?

(14:04):
Like what did they see you becoming? Do you think
they knew or did they just know like our daughters
really talented?

Speaker 2 (14:10):
I don't know. I mean I think that my parents
had so much faith in my talent, sometimes delusionally. So
like my mom, I remember her being like like there
was this one time I had a bad audition. I
just bombed it. And I had been doing readings of

(14:30):
this show for years. I'd been part of the development,
and I like really bombed the audition because I cared
too much and I was too nervous. And I called
my mom in tears, and she was like you should
go back in there and say, do you know who
I am? I was like, Mom, I'm literally not going
to do that, Like that's crazy. So all that to

(14:50):
say they had a lot of faith in me. They
believed that I am like magnificent I think, And then
the flip side of that is that there were a
lot of times for me where I was like, what
if I don't want to do this as a career,
Like what if I don't succeed at this? What if
I'm not as magnificent as you think I am. Like
there was kind of a you know, a teeter daughter

(15:14):
or like a a shadow side or something to that dynamic. Yeah,
I think that like to people who want to help
their kids and to kids who think like, oh I
don't have the financial support that I need to do this,
there are many many ways to succeed and doesn't have

(15:35):
to look like the way that my experience looked like
this was just like one version of success if you
could even necessarily qualified as that. Like, I also struggled
a lot coming off of these big shows, trying to
figure out, you know what if I never reached that
height again and I peaked at thirteen. You know, I

(15:57):
had these like real fears as a young developing mind
of what this could mean for my identity. And I
think looking back, like I needed someone or something to
be like that would be fine, that would be completely
fine if you never did anything again, like you'll feel
find your way. And instead it was this like very

(16:20):
positive and supportive, like, oh, you're gonna be something. So
I think it's interesting. It sometimes felt like support, it
sometimes felt like pressure. I think everyone is always just
trying to like do the right thing. I think everyone
can have good intentions, and when you're dealing with child actors,

(16:41):
it gets real dicey, real quick. Just because you are
a child. You are not an adult yet, you don't
have the mind and the tools of an adult, and
you're being given these massive adult responsibilities. So it's an
interesting time of life to look back on everything you

(17:03):
just explained.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
I think it's so important to say because it's the truth,
you know, And oh gosh, I like, I can't even
imagine like what that type of pressure looked like, especially
like because you want something so bad and then you're
like putting this pressure on yourself and it is hard
to lay on these roles, but you just kept going.
And I think again, like the ethos of this show
is movement. And you know, talking to people that have

(17:24):
had so much success just when you just keep on going,
you know, and you put your head down and you
do the work, and you also explore some other things
sometimes and.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah, I know you did.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
Let's talk about when you're in your teens, and even
before teens, middle school, what does training look like to
become a Broadway star?

Speaker 2 (17:50):
For me, I was taking a lot of voice lessons
from a lot of different teachers, And like I was
saying earlier, I think that's really important because some teachers
know some things. I don't think there's any one teacher
that knows everything, and even if they magically did, they
wouldn't be able to communicate it to everyone because everyone,
you know, kind of speaks your own language. And so

(18:12):
I studied with a lot of different teachers. I would
do different like acting workshops in the San Diego region,
but I also just did a lot of theater. I
did a lot of shows. I was always auditioning. I
was always whether it was like a school show or
like a community theater show or a professional show. To me,
it didn't really make much of a difference. It was

(18:33):
very fun either way. I did take dance lessons but
I wasn't like the most elegant dancer, so I didn't
totally stick with that one. And sometimes I kick myself
because I think, like I would have really benefited from
having that training a little bit stronger now, but that

(18:58):
was too late to start again. I guess still dancing, guys,
don't worry. You're still a good dancer.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
That's so funny, though, No, I'm always so jealous of
the girls that danced growing up. I'm like, if I
could break it down like that at a bar, I'd
be so much more fun, I know.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
And I just thought, like, man, to have like a
knowledge of your body in that way. I just never.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
My goal right now is to learn how to shag.
Oh my god, I just want to learn so badly.
I have this like friend who's like kind of a
mentor to me, and she has privately been taking up
ballroom dancing and literally competing. Wow, I know, And I'm like, wait,
this is the coolest hobby ever.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
That's a really cool hobby. And to be good at
it and competing yeah, And I'm like.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
I literally was saying here, I was like, what's the
best part and she's like, Kate, It's like literally going
to events or the bar with our friends at the
Jersey Shore and being able.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
To shag and look great while dance like she loves
it that I don't know cool. Have you ever seen
those videos of people who are improv improv dancing. No,
there's like a big group of people. It's got to
be these events and they get paired up and then
a random song comes on. They don't know what the
song is going to be, and then they improvise partner
dancing in front of a whole crowd and they look incredible.

(20:05):
My whole for you.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Page is like I need that for you page. I
am obsessed with anything improv. I went to this show
in La for the Netflix as a joke festival that
they do every year, and it was Seth rogen Smokes
Bowl and it was the but it was the coolest
event I've ever been to in my life. It was
Seth Rogen hosting it and he brought on incredible singers.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
He brought on.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
Snoop Dogg, Post Malone, Lil Dicky. I'm like sitting there
being like, these are my favorite artists ever. Wow, And
to see Snoop Dogg performers like a whole other thing.
But even though like Snoop Dogg performed and post Malone,
which were incredible. My favorite performance was he brought on
for iconic Netflix actors and basically they were all smoking
a jay. Every time he said take a hit, they

(20:46):
would take a hit of the jay. And at the
same time they were doing improv on stage, and Ali
was like the most impressive thing I've ever seen in
my life. I'm like, I need to learn, like I
need to take improv classes.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
So how people do this? I would like completely panic,
you'd be good. Oh, I don't know. I'm good with
a script. You give me a script, I can say
the lines.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
But well, we're gonna get to Wicked in a little bit.
But has there ever been a moment on stage in
a Wicked performance where something happens with you and your
stage mates and you guys have to improv pretty often?

Speaker 2 (21:20):
I mean, it doesn't ever come across like we're full
on improvising scenes at least, not that I've had happen yet.
But it does happen, because like the beauty of live
theater is that things just go wrong. Anytime something can
go wrong. I've heard stories of like, oh I heard
a story where you know there was a Fierro who
missed one entrance, and the entrance is kind of pivotal

(21:41):
to the plot because it it inspires Glinda to like
go on this journey of changing her name and her
identity to impress him. But he wasn't there to impress.
And that was a story where I heard where people
just had to kind of like improv until Okay, is
he coming, Nope, he's not here yet. Nope, Okay, I

(22:02):
guess we're just gonna I'm gonna change my name. So
stuff happens. Just last week there was a last minute
someone had to call out for an emergency, so we
had to stop the show. We had to hold for
like ten minutes, and then when we finally went back
into it, it was like me alone on the stage

(22:22):
when the curtain came up and then just like diving
back into the show. So things do happen, but everyone
is so professional for the most part at like easing
into it that you might not even notice than anything happens. Well,
that's because you guys are so good at improving our
people are good. I don't know about me, but.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
No, but it is so impressive, and I think you're right,
like that is the beauty of a live show is
every show is different. Yeah, you know, even though you're
showing up consistent and like being your Glinda every night
as aper and I feel like that's the coolest part
about live theater.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
It is really fun. And like I really thought that
maybe go into the full time job, it would get
monotonous or it would get I would get tired of
doing the same thing every night. But I don't feel
that way at all. It consistently feels like exciting and fresh,
and I have not found that to be part of
the struggle of doing the show, So that's been really pleasant. Surprise.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
What was the transition like going from San Diego Theater
to now you're on Broadway in New York City.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
Just getting to New York was a culture shock. I
was kind of sheltered growing up and I just didn't
really know that much about anything, and so getting to
New York and just seeing such diverse people and such
a different hustle bustle on the streets, it was, you know,
exciting change for me, and I fell in love with
it right away. Like I've been in New York as

(23:44):
an adult now for all of my twenties, and I
love it here so much. But in terms of actually
the theater, I didn't feel that it was so different.
But I think that's because I was too young to
know how important Broadway was. And I don't mean that
in like, I don't want that to sound offensive.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
Before your brain fully develops, you don't realize certain things exactly.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
I just didn't know how big of a deal it was.
On some level. I did because on some level I
was very stressed about, like it all going well, but
I didn't know. I thought I was just excited, you know.
I thought, Oh, I'm just excited to be here. I
was like actually panicked. Subconsciously, I was just happy, you know.

(24:33):
So it was it was still to me like an audience.
As an audience, A show was a show, a cast
is a cast. It didn't change so much the scenery
or the city that I was in, And in principle
I still think that. I still think that to this day.
I think that sometimes the quality that you see on
Broadway is no different than the quality you'd see anywhere else.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
I love theater and I love live performances, and I
remember seeing Wicked for the first time and coming out
of it and being like that was incredible. Yeah, the
first Broadway show I ever saw was The Lion King
and then it was Mama Mia with my mom. But
it's so true that, like, even when I am in Connecticut,
my parents live in this small town and there's like
a little theater nearby, and they're always doing these small

(25:18):
plays and really with no set at all. It's just
like the people on the stage and maybe like one
or two props and they're hour and a half long performances,
and it's incredible.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
Sometimes those intimate theater performances are more impactful for the
audience because you are you feel that you're in it.
Not to say that Wicked doesn't also transport you to
this world and you can feel like you're in it,
But there's something really special about really like seeing a
stripped down, you know, performance where people can't really hide

(25:50):
behind the costume, you can't hide behind the glitz of everything.
It's just like, this is what I have to offer,
and there's something super special about those types of shows.
What is it about theater that you love so much?
There's a lot that I love about theater, but there
is this kind of presence, like this energy where the

(26:11):
full company is coming together with the same shared goal
of telling the story you've all decided to tell. And
you're not on your phones, you're not distracted, you're not
you're right there with one another. And so even as
a child, I loved theater so much because of the camaraderie,
the community aspect of it. And then you layer in

(26:35):
like really high skill artistry and seeing people show up
really putting their best foot forward. It's unbeatable. It's like
you can't match that in any other medium of art.
It's like quite vulnerable too, because every like we were saying,

(26:56):
it's live theater, every day is different. But when people
show up and there's this just unspoken agreement that I'm
going to give you my absolute best I hope it's
good enough, and you're gonna give me your absolute best,
and we're gonna like celebrate and tell this story and
hopefully people will resonate, it's just really like almost spiritual.

(27:18):
It's like almost it's as present as I have found
that I can really get in my life, especially when
it comes to art. But it's yeah, it's like an
unbeatable energy.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
You see kids coming in dressed up in their Glenda
Alfitz like their alphabet outfits, but they're what's the guy's name,
Fari Piero, fierattle boys or in their fia in their
Fia Ferrari. But like you see people dress up every
day and whatever the show is, and I have like
so many whether it's a small theater or a big
production like Broadway, I feel like it's spiritual in a

(27:53):
sense too, because there's so many people in that room,
especially young people literally that can pinpoint the experience seeing
a Broadway show and being like, that is what I
want to do when I grow up. And I just
think that's so cool too, because you're inspiring the next
generation of performers.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Thank you. That's I really appreciate hearing that. And I
also resonate with that because and I've maybe mentioned this earlier,
but the first time I saw Wicked on tour, I
was eleven years old. I was just so blown away
by like the spectacle of the show and just the material,
the songs, the performances, the characters. And I waited at

(28:32):
the stage door I got a photo with Kender Cassabaum,
who was playing Glinda at the time, and I just
was like, you know, just so in awe and then
the following year, my parents took me to see it
again and I made a T shirt with the printed
picture of me and Kendra on it. I bedazzled it myself.

(28:53):
I handmade a collage that I put on the back
of the shirt of all of the Wicked press photos
that were findable at that time. And I staged doored
again and it was still Kendra, and for whatever reason,
she didn't come out to the stage door that day,
but I like refused to let my parents leave, so
we waited for hours. Not very cool necessarily to do,

(29:14):
but I did. I was twelve, and finally an ensemble
member came back and said, oh my gosh, are you
still waiting? And I said, yeah, for Kendra the commercihirt,
And she went and grabbed Kendra, who came out, you know,
probably at the end of a very long week, maybe
at the end of their stop in that city, and
she was like, I didn't know you were still here.

(29:37):
Let me make it up to you. Let me bring
you backstage. And so she took me and my friend backstage,
and she galindified us, and she put glitter on our eyes,
and she let us look at the costumes up close
and that for me was like it I will never
forget that experience because it was so generous of her

(30:01):
time to invite me into what's felt so special. I
felt like, this is so special that I get to
see this. And when I first joined Wicked as the
Glinda standby, it was still kind of people were still masked.
We had a lot of strict COVID rules to keep
people healthy, so you couldn't bring people backstage. But I

(30:23):
started making these little barets, these little like flower Glinda barretts,
so that I could galindify kids at the stage door
and kind of like have my own attempt at giving
some some semblance of what I felt Kendrick gave to
me back in the day. And it is definitely a
pretty magical experience to see kids, you know, I see myself.

(30:48):
I just look at them and I'm like that was me,
you know, and and this could be you in a
couple years. You know, it's really beautiful, it's special. That
story gave me chills. I'm like literally like sparkles are flying,
I know. Also the fact that you have dazzled the
shirt is very Glinda. Yeah, pink and green rhymestones. It
was like it was cute. Yeah, for sure, Like that

(31:09):
is the most Linda thing I've ever heard. Did you
hear that? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (31:14):
You end up for a little bit going to Stamford,
and then you dabbled in on screen performances, took a
break from Stamford, came back. Guys, twenty twenty three, you
did graduate from Stamford. That is so incredible. Almost almost, Okay.

Speaker 2 (31:29):
I did go back. I did go back to school
because during COVID everything went online and I was like, oh,
what a perfect opportunity to continue my education. But technically
I still have one year left. Technically I'm a rising
senior forever. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
Okay, Also, Stanford, Hello, academics. Should we talk about Bye
Bye Birdie first? I mean, it was an incredible experience.
I got to work with John Stamos, who was very
kind to all of us as kids. But the best
part of the Bye by Bertie story is that Danny
Quadrino was in it, and he was the understudy for Hugo,
so we became good friends and he's now playing back

(32:10):
in Wicked with me.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Now, your whole life is like a full circle. Yeah.
I literally feel that way. Like I'm like, I can't
stress my way through this year. I have to enjoy
this because there's too much of the universe has conspired
to bring me to this moment, and I have to
just enjoy it and like laugh at how beautifully things

(32:32):
have timed out. But yeah, Danny Quadrino and I became
good friends. There were other people from both thirteen and
by by Bertie that have either been in Wicked or
you know, everyone's kind of continued their careers in one
way or another.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
That's my favorite thing when I talk to performers is
finding out like how many shows they've done, like what
people have been a part of. Like it's just cool
knowing that you guys are this small community really of performers,
Like I'm sure everybody a lot of people know each other.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
It's like living in a small town. And I feel
like all of the people, at least in like the
two thousand and eight era of child actors on Broadway,
we all know each other. We all it was such
a small world, and so it's very sweet to like
watch people go through their lives. A lot of folks
that I know have left the industry altogether and now
have like thriving lives in completely other you know, genres

(33:23):
of work, and some people are still auditioning, some people
are still working. It's just very cool to know that
we all kind of started from this very bizarre, little
tiny bubble of Broadway kids. Weird.

Speaker 1 (33:40):
Yeah, no, absolutely, And I feel like there's some synergy
to between a lot of like child Broadway stars go on,
like when I think of very on a grande, like
they go on. They start on Broadway and then they
end up also like taking on all these different roles
within the industry, whether it's on screen or singing. I
interviewed the guy, this guy Max to Capital m A exits, Yeah,

(34:00):
and he's thirteen.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Yeah. He also did Wait were you on thirteen with Ariana? Yes? Yes,
I am uncovering show straight now.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
Okay, we I don't know why I didn't put that together,
but yes, the show that he was on with Ariana,
it was so it was you.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
It was Max, Arianna. You who else?

Speaker 1 (34:17):
Liz Gillies, who has interviewing her on Wednesday next There
you go, Hi, Liz, she was in it.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Graham Phillips, Al Calderone, who's in a music artist, Brenn Williams,
who is now teaching and directing a lot of theater,
but has had a massive Broadway career. Yeah. I mean
there were a lot of crazy talented kids that have
come from that show.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
The fact that you and Ariana Grande both came out
of thirteen and are Glinda's is is that crazy sparks
are flying.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
I know.

Speaker 1 (35:02):
You played Kim on Bye Bye Bertie, and that's a
really like vocally mature role, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Yeah, And it's also kind of like, look again, I
was too young to really know what was going on.
I were sixteen when I turned sixteen towards the end
of the run or somewhere in there. So fifteen years old,
lead role on Bye Bye Bertie, just coming off of thirteen,
and I alongside like celebrities, you know, like big names

(35:31):
in that show. And I hadn't really developed my soprano
voice yet. In thirteen. It was like all big belty
kind of stuff, and it was pre puberty, like your
voice as a child is different than your voice as
a teenager. And then yeah, Bye Bye Bertie was a
little bit more in the soprano kind of realm. And
I remember, I mean, what does that sound like? You

(35:53):
know it to go from a mid range, big belt
to well, what's the one boy, special boy? That's too high,
but it's like, you know, prettier and more towards Glinda,
more towards that is in the same Kindlenda genre of singing. Yeah,

(36:15):
I was like too young to really know how to
do that with my voice. Yet it was all instinct.
It was all instinct at that age. I was just
singing it and winging it and hoping that it worked out.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
Well, it did work out, And then at what point
did you say, I want to go to Stanford and
also like such an incredibly academic school. So it's just
insane knowing that all while you were on Broadway child
star massive roles. But miss academics over here is getting
into Stanford, not for theater, for psychology, right.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
Yes, yeah, yeah, So I took a gap year before
I went to Stanford. I was I was very excited,
of course to get into that school and to go
study there, but I wanted to like try TV and
film first. So I lived in la for a year.
But I was like seventeen, and it just like I
had a year of like doing acting and then I thought, Okay,

(37:06):
that's good enough, I'm gonna do school and for all
of high school. It was like both at the same time.
So it was important for me at that time to
like really put it all in one basket and just
commit to acting and then just commit to education. But
that's also why I didn't last four years at Stanford,
because I was like, one year was enough. I want
to go back to singing.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
I can't even imagine balancing the two, Like it's just
way too much work.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
Yeah, it was so much to juggle, and you can't
really put your best foot forward when you have that
much that you're trying to succeed in at once, at
least for me. So I did enjoy my time at Stanford,
and I wanted to study psychology because I really wanted
to understand more about what I went through as a teenager. Honestly,
I was like, these experiences did something to my brain.

(37:54):
I got to figure it out. So that was why
I was initially interested in studying psychology. I also thought like, oh,
this parallels with acting very intuitively. To understand how people
think and how people operate and behave is like the
whole point of acting, or like the whole skill of acting.
So I was at Stanford, but I really quickly was like,

(38:19):
I feel like I'm missing out on my career. I
feel like, if I'm gonna pursue theater and acting, it
has to be now, or I'm gonna lose all of
the momentum that I built as a young person and
I'm going to have to start over from scratch. So
I dropped out indefinite leave of absence, so they say,
and I moved to New York. But I did sort

(38:42):
of have to start over because now I was like
nineteen or twenty, I'm no longer auditioning for teenage roles
or I'm like I am, but I'm a little too
old for them, but I'm a little too young for
the adult leads. So I did have to figure it
out the way that most people coming to New York

(39:02):
are going to have to figure it out. Like, of course,
I had these experiences to bolster my resume or to
give me some understanding of how the industry works. So
not to discount that, but I did have to reintroduce
myself and rediscover myself as an artist. There's even like
you have to relearn how to sing once you go

(39:24):
through once you get into your twenties, you have to
relearn how to carry yourself. You have a new body
of a new voice. So there was a lot of
relearning that I did in my early New York years.
Of course. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
I mean when I think of relearning too, I think
of Justin Bieber and him going for them from that
like childhood voice to his voice now and he did
it beautifully. And yeah, but it is such a thing
you have to relearn. For parents out there that have
kids that are doing what you were doing, right, like
our childhood actors, stars performers, what should they be thinking

(39:57):
about in terms of making sure like their kids are
staying mentally strong because like just hearing that you had
you struggled with it, Like, let's unpack that a little bit.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
This is also why I wanted to study psychology Like this,
I'm so passionate about mental health for people, mental health
for young artists. I think that if you're a parent
with a child who wants to do this, you have
to decide what you want your role as parent to be.
Do you want to be the parent or do you

(40:29):
want to be the manager. Do you want to be
the you know, the agent of your kid and get
them success no matter what, or do you want to
be the parent that is the shoulder to cry on
when things are tough, because the industry is tough no
matter what I mean. You could be the most talented
person to walk the earth and you're gonna struggle at

(40:51):
some point. Something is not gonna align and you're gonna
be like, but I was perfect for that, and I
nailed it, and it's just not gonna go your way.
And so if you as the parent, are approaching your
child with the priority of I want you to be successful,
because then you'll be happy and then you'll be you know,

(41:13):
the reverse is I want you as my child to
be happy so that you can feel successful in however
things pan out. I think it's just a distinction of
perspective and what role does the parent play. I also
think that for the people pursuing the industry, you have

(41:33):
to have some perspective of who you are as well.
If you wrap your whole identity up in your work,
like in any industry, we know across the board that
that's not healthy. Like you wouldn't look at someone who
is like spending you know, eighty hours a week grinding
at their job and think like that's a healthy person
or that person, you know, is probably thriving in their life.

(41:56):
They might be making a lot of money, they might
have some version of success, and maybe they are really
happy with that, but it isn't necessarily the way to succeed.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
And that's why I like talking about the fact that
you were interested in going to Stamford and studying psychology
and doing something outside of acting, because people have lives
outside of this one thing, right, And I think for you,
like when you were in high school and even now,
like what do you love to do outside of performing
and acting? Like what is Ali Like? Oh my gosh,

(42:26):
off off stage, off camera. There are so many things
that I like. I like to eat good food. I
like to enjoy the landscape of New York. I like
to go bouldering and rock climbing.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
Oh my god. Yeah, I like picked it up as
a hobby in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one and just
like fell in love with it. And that was probably
actually the first time that I realized, oh yeah, this
is what a hobby is. It's where you do something
for fun with no intent to impress anybody or make
any money. That is the point of a hobby. And

(43:02):
like I didn't know, so now I've like taken myself
on some trips around the world to do some outdoor climbing.
I'm by no means great at it. Okay, I love it.
That is so cool. It's so cool, Glinda, Glinda goes
to the mountains. Yeah, like I don't need a bubble
to get up there. You know, you climb myself. Okay,
I'm obsessed with that.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
You need hobbies outside literally, even me, Like when I
my hobby used to be running because I was working
in advertising, and I've had to figure out like now
running has become like a part of my job.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
But at the same time, it's like I still love running.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
It still is a hobby for me to go on
solo runs by myself, right, and I love it. But
I have had to be like, Okay, like I need
to figure out a couple other things. And I started
like loving to read biographies and just like learn about people.
It's actually been really fun. Yeah, And I was never
really a reader, and recently I'm leaning into memoirs and
biographies and just like having those chill moments. And it's
necessary because I need to have things where like rock

(43:55):
climbing where it's literally like you cannot be on your phone.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
Yeah, yeah, you really can't. You really can't with that one. Yeah. Yeah.
When I first started at Wicked, I really quickly realized, Okay,
I care about this way too much. I have to
remember that I can care about other things too, or
else I'm going to lose my mind. And I rescued
a dog and I now have the most angelic, perfect

(44:22):
little rescue dog. His name is Kip. And that was
like another you can't call a dog a hobby, but
one kind of thing. Yeah, going to the dog park
is a hobby. If it's my hobby, I love him.
And it was just like something where I was like,
I need to shift my perspective and remember that not everything,
you know, if I have a bad if my voice sounds,
you know, less than ideal on a show, or like

(44:43):
something goes wrong, it can't be the thing that matters
most to me, because then I'm just setting myself up
for like the type of vulnerability that is a little
difficult to bounce back from. And if I just can
keep some perspective that, like, the world is bigger than
this one per performance, then probably all of the performances

(45:03):
will be better because I'll be less stressed and I'll
have more fun. And everybody wants to watch people having fun.
No one wants to watch someone like thinking about how
they're singing as they're singing it.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
I just have to say, like, your performances are pretty perfect,
and I think like just having those, like even just
having this conversation with you, and I think people are
going to be so excited to.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
Hear that, like you're human, stuff happens.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
You're not going to come off stage every night and
be like that was the best I've ever did, But
it makes those moments where you do come off stage
and you're like, damn, that was a pretty good performance
even better, right, because if we were perfect all the time,
like life would be so boring.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
The other day, just the other day, there's this one
note that Glenna sings that's like quite low and usually
I can hit it, and this one show, oh my gosh,
it just was like like it just didn't come out right,
and I was I mentioned it to one of my
cast mates and I was like, I really kind of
like mess that up, huh, And she goes, oh, yeah,
but a little imperfection suits everybody, you know what.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
Yeah, yeah, fair, We have to talk about the Marvelous
Missus Mazel because that was, Oh my god. Like when
I think of my favorite shows, I think of the
Marvelous Missus Maseel. I think of what was that advertising
show mad Men?

Speaker 2 (46:12):
Mad Men?

Speaker 1 (46:12):
Like I love that era. The way it's produced is perfect.
And you played Daisy, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
I had a very small role. This was like one day.
Yes it was in their their final season. It was
like a one day of shooting. But you have to
put something like that on your resume because it's the
Marvelous Missus Mazel. I mean it was very cool. The
day of filming that I was there, I got to
meet Rachel Brosnan. I got to kind of like have

(46:40):
like a very brief interaction with her. It was cool
to see how they built like the costumes and the
sets that day. It was so many extras in the
in the scene as well. So to have everybody come
and like within an hour and a half just be
like dulled up to the fifties, it was. It was spectacle.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
I mean yeah, literally like dolled up to the fifties,
like in the truest form. The costume design on that
and the set design on that show is incredible.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
The production is everything's just like so good.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
I'm obsessed when producers and directors and the costume, Like
when everything just comes together so beautifully, I'm like, oh,
they might.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
Create they're not tight ship there too, Like yeah, it
all has to be word perfect for Miss Mazel. Not
every like set or every production company is like very
strict about being word perfect. I when I was a kid,
I filmed a scene in a thirty Rock episode with
Tina Fey and John Ham speaking of Iconic and speaking

(47:38):
were They were just riffing off of each other the
whole time. They asked me to add lib and I
took the ad libs too far. They were like, actually,
we're gonna have you go back to the script. I
took it a little too far off script. But they
were just riffing and improving. And but at Miss Mazel
it was like if you drop the word the and
you kind of just like say, they will give you

(47:59):
a line note and that like you have to say
the word of the So it's a tight tight Uh.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
I wonder if that's because they're trying to so much
so match. Also, the way they spoke in that era
is that totally yeah, and it's to give it a
consistent tone.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
Like it's also the same creators of Gilmore Girls, I think,
and so it's a very specific tone where there's like
this pattern of speech that you can recognize. Oh, that
is like the style of the show. And you have
to even for people who are you know, listening and acting,
you can look at the other work that these producers
have created and understand when you're auditioning for a piece,

(48:34):
like for Miss Maisel, this is the style of speech
they're going to look for. This is the word perfect
expectation they're going to have, And then that can also
kind of help you for success when you're trying to
audition for something like that. Yeah, I definitely, And it's
interesting too.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
I feel like certain castings probably want word perfect and
some are like, we want you to be able to
add live a little bit. When you say Tina fe,
I mean immediately think of Amy Poehler. Oh my god, right,
Like the two of them are always the other.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
Is that right, Am? I think you're the right person.
Just like it's magic watching artists that speak the same
language be able to just bring the best out in
each other.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
I am obsessed right now with Amy Poehler's podcast.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
I don't know if you haven't. I've seen little clips
on TikTok That's what I've been seeing.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Yeah, okay, I've seen clips on TikTok her and Dvakota Johnson.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
Yes. I was like, oh my god, this is so
freaking funny. I saw the clip of that with Amy
Poehler being like, how do you rev yourself up for
a sex scene? And Dakota was like, I don't need
to rev myself up for I'm always revved what I mean.
Dakota's like comedic timing is so funny. She is so funny.
She's so funny and gorgeous. Yeah, just gorgeous.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
What was it like going from on stage performances in
your teens to then on screen?

Speaker 2 (49:44):
Totally different different fields, different almost different industries. Like it's
totally different skill sets. I have a lot more experience
in theater. I have a lot more experience knowing how
to like carry myself on a stage, But when you're
carrying self for a screen, it's just a different set
of skills. So anytime that I've been on a like

(50:05):
a set for something on camera, I feel very much
like a small fish in a big pond, like soaking
in the expertise around me. I feel like, at least
in theater, I like feel confident in my skills. I
know what I'm bringing to the table. But maybe someday
I'll I'll have enough experience to feel a little bit

(50:26):
more like I know what I'm doing. I feel like, yeah,
I mean, I hope so. And not to say that
I've been like totally panicked in the past, but it's
just a new environment and things run a little differently.
What I will say is I did an indie film
once and we had like a few months in a
small town in the Midwest, and that felt different than TV.

(50:48):
Even like making a film where you're with the same
people for a long period of time, building the same story,
you know, sitting with the same characters. That's one thing,
and it's closer to something like a long running show liquicked,
where you're doing the same story, the same character, same company.
But then when you have these one off days of

(51:09):
filming here and there, it's a little bit like, Okay,
you know, you don't know anybody necessarily, so it's just
a little bit like you're thrown in. You deliver, and
you leave and then that's like the whole skill is
just being able to show up and be on right away.
There's no ease into it, so just different skills.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
I was talking to someone that is doing theater right now,
Eliah Scott. She was an actress and sex size for
College Girls. Now she's producing I think she's producing Slash
directing this play, but I don't even know if it's
running anymore. But it was like a short stint of
a play off Broadway in New York, and I was
asking her, like, what was it like going from on
screen to now being back on stage performing and she

(51:48):
was like, well, what I love about on stage performing
is that you don't have to redo the takes.

Speaker 2 (51:54):
It is what it is. There's so much freedom in that.
There's pressure in that, but it's so freeing.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
It's like, yeah, and those rehearsals involved for you to
get it right. But yeah, that was one of the
things that she said, and I found it really interesting.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
That's been something actually that I think about lately, because like,
the culture of bootlegs is crazier than it's ever been.
I think, what do you mean by bootleg Like when
people film live theater and then they post it online illegal, Oh,
helpful for people who don't have access fun but all

(52:34):
when I come down in the bubble, like I can
look out and see immediately like the twelve reflective screens
glaring back, and I know, okay, whatever I do right now, yeah,
it's the one live take, but like it's gonna live
online forever. So that's an interesting new thing in the
theater world that I don't know, Like I'm still figuring
out exactly how I feel about it, because I do

(52:55):
watch them. I do watch them when they come up
on TikTok and say, oh, Jen Smart and Death, let
me watch that.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
Yeah, But that I would have mixed feelings about it too,
because it does come with this added pressure of being like,
oh wait, I thought this was going to be an
intimate performance, and now we're filming for.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
TikTok yeah and YouTube. Yeah. And then it even makes
me think like if I were performed, Okay, this is
like kind of a digression. If I were performing on
a big Broadway stage there's two thousand seats. You know,
you have a certain thing that you do to like
tell the story. But then I see these tiktoks come

(53:31):
out and it's like zoomed in like right here, and
so what I whatever the actor, whether it's me or
someone else, is doing to read to the you know,
two hundredth row you're getting right here, So then it's
creating the I don't know if I'm right about this.
This is just my hunch. It's creating this like thing

(53:53):
in acting on stage where you're both simultaneously acting for
the full audience, but you're also sort of acting for
a close up. I don't know if this is true.
I'm curious what other people think, if anyone else has
noticed this. But how do you do both? And I
guess the answer is you just be honest and you
like you just tell the story. But I don't know.

(54:17):
It's different. So this is a different perspective.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
But when I'm filming my running interview show selfie style,
it's very different when the member you even asked me,
like the cameras in front of us as well. Right,
Sometimes we have Jeremy cumm and he films, and I
want to start filming the show more consistently horizontal so
that we.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
Can get the episodes up on YouTube.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
But it is so different interviewing like this style where
the cameras are Hey, guys, the cameras are out there
versus like me holding it. It's like a different cadence
of conversation. And the close up is very different than
the far away and you can't you can't really do
both of the same. Yeah, you can't optimize at the
same time. Yeah, I don't know, it's just a different vibe.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
I haven't talked to anyone about my thoughts on bootleg acting,
so I kind of want to like survey the crowd
and see what people think if that's the real thing
or not. Maybe it's just me.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
Yeah, But also like having reflecting phones in your face
when you're performance, it's distracting, So distracting your phones away. Guys,
you're in this dream role right now as Glenda on Broadway.

(55:27):
But I love knowing that. You also love on screen acting.
So do you see yourself in the future getting back
into that.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
I feel like I'm at a point in my life
where whatever I do after Glinda, I've only planned this far,
Like Glinda was my dream job and now I'm doing it,
and I haven't really thought about what comes next. So
maybe there's some screen acting, maybe there's more theater, maybe
there's like marriage and family, Like, I really don't know
what my next steps are going to be after this show.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
Well, if you could pick a dreams series to be
a part of, and this is just to like get
a sense of your personality, what would you love to
be in?

Speaker 2 (56:06):
Uh, like, put me on Glee, Put me in Glee,
let me sing, let me be ridiculous, and let me
be dramatic. But at the same time, I just know
that would like come back to bite me, you know,
like it's come back to bite mister Schuster, but it's okay.

(56:28):
I think it would be fun to be in a
long you know, a long running musical sitcom. How fun
would that be? Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
It'd be fun to see you you and it also
be fun to see like what type of theater kid?

Speaker 2 (56:40):
Are you? On the flip side, though, I actually really
like scary things and it would be really fun to
do like horror films because I love watching them. I
love like thinking about what they're going through as the
actors creating scary films. I think that would also be
very fun to do something in like they a little

(57:03):
spooky little scorpio spooky show. Are you scorpio a scorpio? Yeah? Oh?
A scorpio stellium.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
Okay, I'm cancer and scorpio and cancers are very compatible.
My fiance scorpio. Oh yeah, it was his birthday November sixth,
when it's Ectober October twenty seven. Yeah, so you're very
close to Halloween. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:20):
Yeah, I've got that spooky energy, you know, I've got
that witchy energy. Yeah. Okay, it's like perfect that you're
in Wicked. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
So twenty twenty one to twenty twenty four, you were
stand by as Glinda on Broadway. Let's talk about auditioning,
how you got that part, and paint picture of what
it looks like to be a stand by.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
Okay, So I first auditioned for Wicked. I was out
of town filming a Hallmark Christmas movie. And funny enough,
the character that I was playing in this Hallmark movie
was kind of Glinda esque, like kind of bubbly, kind
of cheery. What's the Hallmark movie so we can watch?
Oh my gosh, it's called Next Stop Christmas. Are you

(58:00):
the main character in it? No? I have like a
couple of small scenes, but it was super fun to do.
We filmed it in like the heat of August or
September but anyway, I was out of town filming that
when I got the audition request for Wicked, and I
literally like my heart stopped. I thought, Oh, the chance
is here. I've waited my whole life for this email

(58:22):
to come and show up, and it is here. And
I have only a suitcase of like sweats with me.
So I threw together what I could for a self
tape and I submitted it and my manager was like,
you sound great, you look great, but you have to
just refilm it and you have to wear pink and
curl your hair. And I was like, you've got to
be kidding me, Like, don't people have an imagination? The

(58:44):
quality is there, and they were like, no, just trust us,
and so I did. I said, okay, I went and
like rent the runway a bunch of pink dresses, and
I refilmed it and sent it in and immediately got
an in person callback, which I was thrilled about that,

(59:06):
Like the whole story could have ended there and I
would have still been like I did that, like I
touched Wicked in some way, And so I had an
in person callback a few weeks later, and I went
in and the music director of Wicked his name is
Dan Mitchik. He looked at my resume and he recognized thirteen.

(59:27):
So this is one of those things where it's like
I wouldn't be where I am without the things that
I did as a child. Anyway, he saw thirteen and
he was like, wait, which one were you? And I
was like in Glinda character, I was like, I was
the main one, you know, just kind of being kind
of a diva. And he said, we'll prove it sing
and the piano player started playing one of the main

(59:48):
songs that I sung in thirteen that I haven't sung
in ten years, and I said, if I'm going to
sing this song, I'm singing it as Glinda. And I
just went into this performance of what it means to
be a friend but as Glinda, and it got a
chuckle out of the room, it got a chuckle out
of me. The energy was really good, and I left
thinking something is going to come from this. And I

(01:00:10):
had one more follow up, a callback with our associate
director and they film it so that they can send
it to like the whole team of everybody, and that
audition I went in. I did like one song and
they were like, that's all, thanks, And I was like, oh,
like maybe this is the end of the road. But
it was right after my twenty seventh by my twenty

(01:00:31):
seventh birthday, on the twenty seventh, that I got the
call that I would be joining the company. And you know,
I had like a golden birthday theme and I was
kind of manifesting, like what do I want for this
year of my life? And to get that as the
start of that year was just the hugest gift. And
I had like two weeks of rehearsal. A lot of

(01:00:53):
people were still I mean we were like not really
out of the clear. I mean we were not really
in the clear with COVID yet, so there were a
lot of restrictions around who could come into the building,
how we could rehearse. People were out sick a lot,
so it was a little bit of a stressful time.
And I walked in on this kind of like resurgence,

(01:01:14):
bringing Broadway back from a very dark time for theater.
And I had a very limited rehearsal. I had one
put in and then I made my debut the following
week on Christmas Day of twenty twenty one. Wow. So
that was like crazy Christmas to remember. And I loved
being a standby, I just would have stayed there forever.

(01:01:35):
I loved the job so much. I loved the ability
to pop in and do the show here and then
with the knowledge that I could rest and recover afterwards,
so like it always felt manageable, doable. It felt like
I could really give it my all and then rest

(01:01:56):
and then. The challenge with doing it full time, of course,
is that you have to figure out how to maintain
that level of performance. And the challenge with the standby
position is that you never know when you're going to
go on, so you have to be ready, but you
don't really always have any notice. So there are pros
and cons of each job type, I guess, but I

(01:02:17):
really loved being a standby.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
I also feel like being a standby before you are,
like the lead, is kind of a great experience because
you learn the role and you figure out, like, what
is the Glinda that I want to be? Do you
feel like having had that experience, it's now helped you
so much as the lead.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
One hundred percent. It's also been incredibly helpful to watch
so many other Glinda's come in and see them go
through the process, see how they find their own voice
in it, how they find their body in it, see
how they navigate the challenges of the job over the
course of their year. I've just learned so much from

(01:02:54):
watching these pros come in and like kind of pave
the way. And I also have learned a lot from
being able to do the show with so many different Alphaba's.
So in my time a standby, I've done the show
with at least seven different women playing Alphaba. And you
learn a lot just from having that different scene partner,
the different you know, even different ensemble members, different wizard,

(01:03:16):
different Madam Morble. It brings out different things in the
material that you might not have ever noticed before. So
now being in the show a full time, I've had
so many years to sit with the material and like
really discover all of these little baby nuances that I
don't that it took me, you know, a couple of
years to even think, oh, what if I did this here?

(01:03:38):
Like what if you know, I never even thought about
that line being said like that before, But that just
happened organically, And it's a huge gift that I had
that time to prepare.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
And now it's like, you know the show like the
back of your hand, totally. Yeah, I used to like
wake up in a cold sweat. I would like run
the show in my dreams, like just in case. And
now I like I could play any role I could.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
I might not do it well, but I could probably
split those lines out. What is your favorite song to
perform in the musical? It switches depending on like the day,
depending on how my voice is feeling. I will never
get tired of singing the opening number, No one warns
the Wicked. It's just like a very beautiful without spoiling anything,

(01:04:25):
in case people don't somehow know how Wicked ends. Glinda's
arc starts and ends with this song, and so she
is kind of like going through a whole myriad of emotions,
all covered by this like presentational like diplomatic, you know, front,
and it happens to be sitting in this huge, soaring

(01:04:47):
soprano that like when you have those top of the
show nerves, it just like comes out. It's just so
much fun to sing up there, and I will never
get tired of it. And it's like you're in the
bubble in this massive dress, uh, sparkling, It's so fun.
It's so fun. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
No, I feel like outside of like the actual performance,
I would geek out over the costumes.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
The costumes are incredible. Okay. That's the other great thing
about being in the full time position now is that
I've had all of the costumes made just for me.
So when you're a standby in its own cool way,
you're wearing different mixed match pieces from other Glinda's costumes
from the past, and that's fun because you're like, oh wow,
I'm wearing like Kendrick Cassabam's corset and she was the

(01:05:31):
first Glinda I ever saw. Very cool. But then to
be able to like have these custom dresses fit and
made for you with your name stitched in, it feels
so special and like it's like kind of just I
don't know, it just feels like this girly little special thing.
You're living out your princess like fairy tale to us.

(01:05:52):
But I mean, how could you not.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
And what's different about your Glinda dresses that like we
haven't seen before.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
They're all handmade. And I also have a brand new crown.
That's probably the most different of my costumes is that
I have a brand new bubble crown, which is the
blue crown that Glinda wears at the top of the show,
and so no one has ever worn it, only me. No,
The costume thing is one of the coolest things.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
And I remember like when Mary Kate Morrison and I
when we first did the Who's Glinda in twenty twenty four?

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
Sorry, Alpha Ba Hello else?

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
She was Alphaba in twenty twenty four, and her and
I like two years ago when I was kind of
first starting out the running interview show, we ran from
Central Park to the Gershwin Theater and she tore us
around and I remember one of the things that she
said to me was how she was stand by at
the time and she was wearing I forget who which
alphabat was, but she was wearing their costume and how

(01:06:43):
special it was even like asked stand by to be
able to wear the costume of this other incredible performer
and like woman that wore it before her. And I
think the cool thing then about becoming the Alpha Ba
me Glinda and having these custom costumes made for you
is like future generations of Glenda are gonna wear those
and be like this is the costume that Ali war.

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):
Yeah, And it really does feel like when I talk
about the spiritual like presence of theater, this is part
of it, like the whole energy that you bring your
you know, operating from this frequency, and it just you know,
in my mind, it's like the costumes feel it, and
then the people who wear the costumes will feel it.
And I hope that if anyone wears my skirt in

(01:07:25):
the future, whatever, I hope they feel like well dressed
and well prepared and excited, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:07:32):
Yeahect it's literally good vibes and connected to you in
a way.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
So your alphaba right now with you.

Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
The other lead is Lencia, and you guys are getting
a lot of press about having incredible chemistry on stage.
Oh yeah, So what goes into making sure you have
good chemistry? Because I feel like we hear this a
lot in acting, where they do literally like chemistry testing
before casting people.

Speaker 2 (01:07:54):
Yeah, at Wicked, they don't do that, you really. I mean,
I'm sure they have a whole process of like determining
who they think will be well matched, but they don't
have you auditioned together. So when I found out Lancia
Cabetta was going to be playing Alpha Ba, I was
so thrilled because she's also our first principal black alphaba
that we've had in wicket on this Broadway production. So

(01:08:16):
that's major and overdue and very very exciting. And when
I found out she was still on tour with Hamilton,
so I actually flew to San Francisco and saw her
in Hamilton because I just wanted to like start our
friendship off on a good, supportive, fun note, and I
wanted to see her shine and kind of like, I

(01:08:39):
don't know, just start things as soon as I could.
I was just so excited and I was blown away
by her voice, by her presence. I think that people
who see her in the show are going to be
really just like.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
WHOA.

Speaker 2 (01:08:52):
That is a woman who just stands and sings and
sings the shit out of these songs. So it's been allome.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
Yeah, what is your pre show ritual before Glinda gets
into the bubble?

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
There's a lot that goes on before Glinda goes into
the bubble. On our run we talked about like the
minutes leading up to it, but there's actually a lot
more of the ritual that goes in. So I have
a whole vocal warm up that I do at home.
My dog is my audience. He sits and watches me.
He knows I'm about to leave, so he's stressed. But
I sing anyway, and I have like a physical warm

(01:09:26):
up that I do as well. But once I get
to the theater, like I'm ready to go, I do
my own makeup. Glinda on Broadway does her own makeup,
which is great. And then I hang out with my dresser, Jess,
who her whole job is to make sure that my
job is as easy as it can be and that
my costumes look amazing on me. So we love Jess

(01:09:49):
and I just kind of catch up with the company,
and then as we get closer to showtime, I get
amped up. I mean, I just like we all run
around like bad little kids getting ready to do Wicked.
And then yeah, in those final minutes, you get into
the bubble. I'm held in there by one clip and
the bubble goes up, and when you're at the top

(01:10:10):
waiting for the show to start, at the top of
the show, you can look down and there's like a
little gap between curtains where you can see the front row,
and I can look down at the top of the show,
I can see if there are any kids in the
front row, if they're in their Glinda best. There are
a lot of kids coming to the show in costume
these days, which is so sweet, and it kind of

(01:10:32):
puts me in a space where I can have a
little moment of gratitude and like I'll say a little prayer.
I'll say a little prayer of like I hope this
is a protected and great show. I mentioned there's a
little poster hanging right at eye level where the bubble
stops at the top and the Glinda from the previous
contract will create a little break a leg. It's visual

(01:10:53):
which is very, very precious. And then the show starts.
The lights go down and we kick it off and
the bubbles turn on and it's all shot out of
a cannon from there, lights, camera action. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
Because of the Wicked movie coming out, it's like a
monumental time to be part of Wicked. You're also part
of the twentie anniversary, so like you're hitting all these
like iconic milestones for Wicked.

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
It's such an incredible time to be part of the show.
I feel so grateful and like the fun things that
have gone on behind the scenes in the years that
I've been here have been like as fun as doing
the show itself. I've gotten to meet and hang out
with both Kristen and Idna at the twentieth anniversary. I've
gotten to get dressed up for different premieres and different

(01:11:37):
events to celebrate Wicked, and like, it's just been really
special and I'm really looking forward to what comes of
this next year as we gear up for the second
movie coming out, and I'm looking forward to seeing it.
I loved the first movie. I wept through the whole ending,
and I'm really excited to see the next.

Speaker 1 (01:12:06):
We talked about this a little bit before we sat down,
But you are involved in a way in the movies.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
A little teeny tiny way, Yes, how you're involved. I
so for the first film, part of what goes into
making a movie musical involves creating demos of the music.
So there was an era in like I think the
summer of twenty twenty two, where the company of the
Wicked movie would like hire some of us from the

(01:12:36):
Broadway company to come and sing some of the demos.
So I got to sing some of the Glenda material
for the demos that they then used in the production
of the movie. I don't really know how it all
played out or what they used and didn't use, And
I think that there were a lot of company members
in the Broadway company that had their vocals end up
in the film, so fingers crossed, maybe there was still

(01:12:57):
some hope for that for the second movie, because that
would be so cool and it's just fun to be
able to be a part of it in any little
way and to be able to just see how it
gets made. The magic is made from behind the curtain.

Speaker 1 (01:13:09):
You know, it's incredible, and I just I love knowing
how much the movie pays so much kudos and respect
to like you guys who are performing the show every
single night. But when you were watching it for the
first time, what were you like so hyped to see
about Arianna as Glinda, Like, was there one moment that
you were like, she nailed that.

Speaker 2 (01:13:28):
Oh, there was so many moments that I thought she
nailed it. Even before it was announced that she was
going to be in it, when it was like rumored
of who could be playing Glinda, I really thought she
would be spectacular because she just has this kind of
energy that lends itself to such a rich character like this,
and such a beautiful, like beloved character too, So I thought,

(01:13:54):
I mean, I was thrilled seeing her popular. I thought
it was hysterical, so many of her little like isms,
like her little line deliveries, both her and Cynthia and
Jonathan Bailey. It was nice to get like a close
up on all of these little moments that a lot
of them exist in the in the Broadway show, even
if their little ad lips or even if they're little

(01:14:15):
like just tiny moments in the background. But with the film,
you can really zoom in and like see these little
moments clearly. And so I just got such a kick
out of seeing how much they you know, fleshed out
the whole the whole story, and how much they paid Homash,
how much they respected the original source material.

Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
It was beautiful and I mean I feel like too,
like as somebody that's a constantly performing it on stage.
It was probably so cool for you to see how
they imagined OHZ and you know, and She's like, well,
they just built this.

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):
Whole world, like I want to go to that theme park.
I want to go. You need to visit, Like I
want to go that and we all do, we all
want to go. It was so fun.

Speaker 1 (01:15:01):
I loved the Wicked movie itself, of course, but my
favorite thing was Architectural Digested.

Speaker 2 (01:15:06):
This video it's like a twelve.

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):
Minute long video on YouTube and where they were interviewing
the guy that's was in charge of production, and he
went through and obviously it's this incredible company of people
that work with him, but he took us through like
every single scene and every single set from the entrance
of like the toulips and how they had to plant
like an insane amount of toolips somewhere in Europe and

(01:15:29):
they had to time everything perfectly with like when the
toolips bloom and then like what went into shiz and
that entrance scene of them on the boats and having
like it was just so crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:15:38):
I had to watch that. Oh my god, you have
to watch that. We just watched the trailer for the
second film. It was incredible, and some of us in
the company at the Gershwin watched it together and it
got me so excited because you could even see like
the visuals of the Tornado being filmed in Cpia, like
in the same tone that it was filmed in the

(01:16:01):
Wizard of Oz movie. That's incredible. I mean, I think
that they have taken it so seriously and that they
have clearly careen and loved this material so much so
I can't wait to see it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:14):
What are you most excited about for the second movie? Like,
what are you most excited to see?

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
Well, I'm really curious to see what is different from
the Broadway Show in I don't want to spoil anything,
but I'm curious to see how the characters transition and change.
And I was saying earlier, I love scary things and
act too. Of Wicked is like it can be kind
of dark. Actually, a lot of Wicked, depending on what
it is that you're looking for, can be like very

(01:16:40):
serious and heavy if you look for those themes woven
underneath all of the bubbles and the glitter. So I'm
excited to see these characters really come into their own
and I guess just pay the consequences of their actions
and the first movie, or like reap the benefits, so

(01:17:02):
to speak. And I think that there's probably going to
be a lot of depth. Well I hope. I'm excited
for the depth that these characterists are going to give us. Yeah, no, wait,
I'm curious. Do you know this?

Speaker 1 (01:17:18):
Like did they film part one and Part two together?

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
So it's already filmed? Yeah, they did. They filmed it
all together. And then I think they're doing some reshoots
here and there, and I know that they're still doing
a couple of little musical different things. So there's the
movie's not done yet. But I am not a spokesperson
for the movie. I don't really know.

Speaker 1 (01:17:38):
Yeah, I was just wondering, So I'm like, I didn't
know that, Okay, Well we talked about so much, seriously, Ali,
Like I just loved getting a peek behind like the
curtain of you today and like learning everything about you.
It's seriously just so cool. There's still so much more
to uncover with you. But I'm so excited to just
like experience you as the Queen this year on Wicked.

(01:18:02):
What are you excited about? What's coming up for you?
What do we got going on?

Speaker 2 (01:18:06):
I mean mostly right now, it is just these eight
shows a week. It's getting through this show. We have
Broadway and Brian Park coming up, and a couple of
different like Broadway community events that are coming up with Wicked.
But if anyone wants to come see the show, give
me a shout out, I will blow you a bubble.

Speaker 1 (01:18:24):
Thank you guys so much for tuning into today's episode.
Your support means the world to me and helps us
continue bringing you inspiring conversations. If you've been enjoying post
run high, please be sure to follow the show so
you never miss an episode. Leave us a quick rating
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I'll see you guys next week. I hope you got

(01:18:46):
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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Allie Trimm’s Wicked Journey to Playing Glinda on Broadway