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Broadway powerhouse Caissie Levy discusses her audition for Disney's FROZEN, her adorable son Izaiah, her early days on the other side of the stage door and more.
Here are some must-read highlights:
ON BELTING 'MEMORY' IN THE HOSPITAL
“I had just become a mother. My son was six weeks early and three pounds and in the hospital for a month. The first thing I auditioned for when Izaiah was born was CATS. I was at the NICU all day from 6AM until 11PM just waiting to nurse and feed and snuggle with him. I was literally in the waiting room of the NICU [neonatal intensive care unit], where they see visitors, singing ‘Memory,’ trying to learn those lyrics, and then I went in to that audition.”
ON MEETING SARAH JESSICA PARKER AT THE STAGE DOOR
“It was my first trip to New York. We went to see HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING. I was 14, and I sat in the front row with my parents. I could swear Sarah Jessica Parker was looking at me the whole show. I felt like she was performing just for me. I sort of looked like her. She had the blonde curly hair. I said to my parents, ‘I really want to wait at the stage door and try to meet her.’ So we waited. When she came out, I said, ‘Hi, I just thought you were amazing.’ She said, ‘You were the little girl in the front row!’ She had so much time for me. I said, ‘I want to do what you do!’ She said, ‘You can do it,’ and I’ve never forgotten that. When I see these kids at the stage door who wait around for us to come out and sign, I really try to take my time with them because I remember what that felt like. It’s always somebody’s first Broadway show.”
ON HER SON'S VACUUM OBSESSION
“Izaiah is a singing kid. Everything in our house is sung. My husband David plays the guitar. He’s a composer, so we’re always jamming out with the kid. Izaiah loves everything to do with anything electronic. He’s really into the vacuum, which he calls a ‘bacuum.’ He can’t say, ‘v,’ only ‘b.’ He literally cries for it. He stands in front of the closet where the vacuum is and says, ‘Bacuum! Bacuum!’ until we take it out and plug it in. Once it’s on, it’s like his meditation.”
ON ELSA FORECASTING
“I remember when I saw the movie. ‘Let It Go’ was blowing up, and I remember thinking, like every other belter out there, ‘That’s a great song. I want to sing it someday.’ My brother Josh’s boyfriend Rich is a casting director in Los Angeles, and I remember when they went to see the film, he said to my brother after, ‘Well, you know you’re sister is going to play that part on Broadway.’ So, he was the one that predicted the whole thing.”
ON PATTI MURIN
“There was a day where they were pairing a bunch of us up, and I found out after that audition that I had gotten the role, and then they brought in a bunch of Annas to read with me. Patti was one of them, and in our minds, the Anna that made sense. We just hit it off. We knew each other a little bit, but we weren’t close friends prior to this job. But we’ve gotten really, really close. When we read together, there was some sort of magic happening.”
ON ‘BUMPING UP’ ‘LET IT GO’ FOR BROADWAY
“At one point in tech, I got to sit out front, and we tested different effects and different visuals. The animators and the video designers didn’t want to just create something around me and then plug me into it. We built this moment for the Broadway musical together. They brought in the Disney animators from California to help nuance all of the projections for ‘Let It Go’ when we came to Broadway, and it just bumped it up even more. In Denver it was beautiful, but on Broadway, it’s spectacular. That song is its own magical thing. There’s a reason everyone in the world knows it and loves it and knows all of the words. There’s something about that song. It’ll never feel casual to sing it every night.”
ON HER HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEART PARENTS
“They actually went to high school with Victor Garber and Martin Short. I don’t know if Victor Garber knows this, but he is actually part of my parents’ love story. He was singing at a house party that my mom was going to be at, and my dad wanted to go there to hang out with her. He didn’t have an invite to the party, so when he got to the house, he dropped Victor’s name at the door. They let him in so he could flirt with my mom."
ON HER CAREER
I made my Broadway debut 10 years ago in HAIRSPRAY, and I've done six Broadway shows in 10 years, two West End shows, two off-Broadway shows, and I'm really proud of that. I'm somebody who is a theater girl through and through. This has been my world and my community. It's where I want to be. It's where I've chosen to be every single day. I don't think you can be on Broadway and be in this community without actively wanting to be there. It's not something you can phone in. FROZEN is such a big gig, and I feel really honored that I get to play this dream role.”