Meet the delightful Trinidadian songstress and West End vet taking Broadway by storm.
As we all know, Romeo & Juliet is a story of teenage star-crossed love that has broken many a heart since Shakespeare put quill to parchment hundreds of years ago. But a recent Broadway interpretation of the classic tale, & Juliet, turns the age-old story on its ear with a refreshing modern spin that, above all else, thumbs its nose at the patriarchy.
Cleverly driven by hit music from Max Martin, the big-time producer behind your favorite Katy Perry, Britney Spears, and Pink songs, & Juliet, playing at Broadway’s Stephen Sondheim Theatre, also boasts plenty of clever repartee from Schitt’s Creek writer David West Read as well as humor, glamour, and glitter from director Luke Sheppard. As such, the tale benefits from a cheeky aughts spin by injecting it with a modern-day sensibility. It asks: What if Juliet hadn’t ended it all for a dude she only knew for a day? And what if she busted out of Verona (with a backpack, sneakers, and some good friends) and away from her oppressive fate to find herself afterward?
An integral part of Juliet’s onstage journey is Angelique, a hysterical, scene-stealing version of Juliet’s nurse played by Melanie La Barrie, the only actor to transfer from the musical’s original West End production. Born in Trinidad and now living in her spiritual home of London, this seasoned actor, former DJ, and calypso singer is making her debut on Broadway at the age of 48, but she is no novice to stage and screen.
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Known in the U.K. for roles in popular TV shows like EastEnders and Casualty, La Barrie has an incredibly impressive stage résumé, with featured roles in London’s West End productions of Matilda, Mary Poppins, Daddy Cool, Wicked, Les Misérables, Dick Whittington, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Lorax, Ragtime, and many more touring, workshop, and local productions — and she has done it all with no formal training. She’s thrilled to bring Angelique to Broadway, as she’s been with the character since the play was first workshopped in 2017, La Barrie tells Shondaland, with her wide smile and infectious humor permeating the room via Zoom. Ecstatic that it’s Friday, which means only one evening performance, she’s happy to chat about the show and her career, and “just relax and have a nice break and watch football” — meaning the World Cup.
VVIVIAN MANNING-SCHAFFEL: & Juliet is the modern take on Romeo & Juliet we’ve all been waiting for. I just saw it and thought it was delightful! Which scene did you read and realize that you had to play Angelique?
MELANIE LA BARRIE: I was called back in 2017 by Luke Sheppard, who I have known for years because he was my resident director on Matilda the Musical. I call him my little baby boy director. He said, “Mel, I want you to come read something. I can’t tell you what it is, but can you give me two days to come and read the script?” And I was like, “Sure!” To be fair, I didn’t know all the songs. My pop music era stopped a while ago. Luke sang all the songs, which if you know him, was an extraordinary thing because he’s the shiest, most awkward human being. It was craziness! When I read the script, I was shrieking out with laughter, holding my side and crying at those touching moments. The script was nothing like the script we have now — I didn’t have that speech yet [a long speech she gives in the show]. That didn’t come until we were close to the actual show. My part improved with working on it. I remember feeling the same way about it as when I first read Matilda. To me, it was beautifully silly and raucous and smart. There were more interplays between Shakespeare than there are now. We decided to make it more accessible because Shakespeare tends to frighten people. I also just came back from playing the Nurse in Romeo & Juliet in Liverpool.
VMS: No way! So, you just came from that version of the Nurse, and now you’re up here like, “Oops, I did it again.”
ML: To be able to sing all these pop songs and to be in the recording studio for the Broadway album, behind the screen with Max Martin looking on, I’m like, “I can’t believe my Trinidadian luck!”
VMS: What’s your favorite song to sing in the show?
ML: I love “Perfect,” which was originally recorded by Pink.
VMS: That song kills me. I literally welled up when you sang that. I had to dab under my mask.
ML: I like the culmination of the moment. The Nurse is bawdy and with such broad strokes, in some places silly and a little bit lost. I like that she gets a moment to be a real and profound character where she’s not just an adjunct to Juliet’s story but is someone who cares tremendously about what happens to this young person. It’s a beautiful song.
VMS: It’s about unconditional love. Part of the play is about being too immature to understand what love really is. The Nurse’s demonstration of it with that song sets the tone for what comes afterward.
ML: We’re a mess. Like life. There’s literally not a person on this planet who knows what they’re doing. We wake up every day, and we make it up. The people who are most successful are the people who carry on in spite of their flaws and imperfections. Max Martin is such a clever little sausage!
VMS: [Laughs] I read on Twitter that you sang calypso at town hall in Trinidad at the age of 8! Did you come out of the womb singing? How did you become a DJ? What brought you to London? I want to hear everything.
ML: My life is a series of accidents. I always wanted to perform. It was less about the singing, more about the storytelling. My mom and my sisters make fun because I was bossy at 3, and I would make them sit and do concerts, swishing my little dress. I was always going to be an actor; I just didn’t know how. There wasn’t a straightforward path toward theater in my country. I was born on the wrong side of the tracks in terms of financials. My trajectory didn’t take me toward the kind of people who did drama clubs after school. We didn’t have that in my neighborhood and in my circle. What we did have was calypso. Calypso music is very much about the tradition of telling stories, and that was my way onstage. I was always going to be onstage, even though I am very shy as a person. My teachers encouraged me. There are competitions we can go to, and city hall was where the big national junior calypso competitions took place. They would take people who did well and do concerts, and I started getting paid.
VMS: When did you first get paid?
ML: I was 8! I lived with my stepmom at the time; my mom and my stepmom were both involved not only with me as a performer but also me as an academic. The deal was I had to do really well at school if I wanted to sing these concerts. I had to get straight A’s.
VMS: You had to work to work.
ML: I had to work to work. I remember being in high school; I was in a band at one point that would rehearse two hours away from my school. I would go there straight after school and be back up at midnight to do my homework. I would be done at 2 or 3 in the morning and be back up at 5 to go to school again. It prepared me to work super, super hard and to do it because that’s what I want. No one was making me do this. I wanted it. Therefore, every hour of sleep that I missed, it was because I chose it. I recognized that really early. My O-level results were great, but my A levels sucked. I didn’t have the grades to go straight into university. But that was fine because all I wanted to do was perform. I just carried on with calypso music. I tried party music, but that was less successful because you have to be sexy, and I don’t have that in me. I did music for 100-piece steel orchestras and had to wave a big metal flag for 10 minutes.
When I was 16 years old, I got asked to record a song that became a big national hit. So, I was in the public eye since I was 8, but I was suddenly famous. Which came with all that stuff that comes with being 16 and famous. Then I did a radio program with a friend, who was the same age. Suddenly, I was doing a daily program, then suddenly I was doing a daily early-morning program. That was to various degrees of success, but I wasn’t a real radio DJ. It wasn’t the thing that spoke to me. We would do outside broadcasts on the beach, and suddenly I had to learn how to actually deejay in front of people on a beach in Tobago. I was like, “Sure! I’m going to give it a go!” It was terrible!
VMS: But giving it a go is working for you! That’s a great job!
ML: I fell into it, but it wasn’t my heart job. Then, there came this open audition for a play. I was famous, so I called the person and said I was going to make a fool of myself. I went and didn’t get the part, but I got another part, which [changed] the trajectory of my career forever. Musicals came seven years after that. I played a mother — a 40-something-year-old woman who had monologues throughout the play. I’ve been playing women in their 40s and 50s since I was 19 years old! I’ve only just now grown into my casting bracket.
VMS: And when you’re 65, you’ll be playing the 40-year-old mother!
ML: But that was the play that came to London in 2000. The play was called Clear Water, and it was written by a Trinidadian playwright called Christopher Rodriguez. They only took half of the cast because they wanted to do a London/Trinidadian mash-up of actors, so we had to audition. While I was doing that play, I got offered another play, and when I was in that second play, I was offered representation. Then I was offered a musical, which I’d never done in my life, but I thought, “I’m going to give it a go!” Then suddenly, I did musicals.
VMS: What was the first musical you did in London’s West End?
ML: Ragtime. I auditioned for it. Didn’t get it. They opened, then someone dropped out, and they called me back in to audition. I was irritated to do that. I quarreled with them: “Why wasn’t I good enough the first time?” They gave me the job, and I had to learn it in one week. I loved it — I had the best time. The rest is history. I’ve kind of somehow made a career in making new musicals. I’ve been doing the whole New York thing, getting new agents. I want to make sure that I spend a percentage of my time doing new work, especially with young writers. I’ll do it for two biscuits and a pet of the company dog. It’s important to me to build.
VMS: It’s great you want to help young artists put themselves on the map. What’s your karaoke go-to?
ML: It’s so obnoxious. My favorite karaoke song is Bette Midler doing “Wind Beneath My Wings.” No one is going to dance to it, but I’m going to make them sit down and listen. When I was home in Trinidad as a kid, Bette Midler was my person.
VMS: That was my next question. Who inspired you?
ML: Bette Midler. Whoopi Goldberg. Queen Latifah. Barbra Streisand. These people who are so themselves. They make fun of themselves. They don’t take themselves too seriously. I so wanted to be Bette Midler when I grew up! She was so zany and serious and such a wonderful artist and activist. The way she told a story … I don’t love my singing voice. It is my own voice, and I will deploy it like a weapon. But I loved how she was a masterful storyteller each time she sang a song. I didn’t care if the voice cracked. It was about telling a story.
To me, dreams are so big that they can never really be captured. Every role that I’ve played has been a dream role.
VMS: How is your experience with the West End different from your experience on Broadway? New York must be quite an adjustment.
ML: I remember the first time I came onto the stage in New York, and people applauded when I arrived. To me, that was the weirdest thing. I love that New York audiences expect the best people to be on Broadway, so they appreciate you because they know they are always treated to quality. In Britain, they … [crosses arms] you have to earn it. Then, they love you for it. New York audiences want to open their mouths and consume you. You kind of belong to them. The Broadway fan is a real thing, and it’s so beautiful. We have beautiful fans in London as well, but that New York musical theater fan is a trope. They know everything about shows, the craft; they have strong opinions, not just to be negative. They’re part of the making of the industry. In the U.K., fans follow a person, but here people are fans of Broadway. It’s been a wonderful and eye-opening experience here. There’s nothing like it in the whole world.
VMS: Both London and New York are huge cities but with very different energies. How’s that adjustment been?
ML: London is where my soul resides. I remember flying in, in 1998, and thinking, “Oh, I’m going to live there forever,” and I’ve been there for 22 years. But I love New York so much. The energy of it is so my energy. It’s exactly who I am. It’s focused, and it goes where it’s going, and gets annoyed at people who don’t. It’s silly and full of bright lights, Elmo suits, noise, and haste. You can take a picture everywhere you turn and will take a beautiful picture. I love New Yorkers. The people I met here, I love with my whole heart. The sense of community is so strong. New Yorkers love New York. Your city is your heart. My partner and I go to our pub, and people just start talking to us. You get to meet so many interesting and interested people. They tell you their stories. We know all about their kids, what dinner party they threw.
VMS: If you could play any known role at all on stage or screen, which would it be?
ML: That’s an interesting way to put it. Usually, my answer is it hasn’t been written yet. To me, dreams are so big that they can never really be captured. Every role that I’ve played has been a dream role. Every role I’ve created has been a dream role, but to answer your question, I put this on Twitter the other day: If you’re looking for an aging, plus-sized, non-gender-right Lafayette in Hamilton, I would absolutely do it.
VMS: You would reinvent that in your own way. Who inspires you lately who isn’t in theater? What are you into? What album or TV show or film do you find uplifting?
ML: I wish this would be deep, but I listen to a lot of Jim Henson’s Muppets. Anything Muppets, anything Sesame Street. Right now, it’s Christmastime. I get on the subway, and I’m blasting out Muppets Red and Green Christmas. They use the most extraordinary musicians. I am obsessed with the Muppets, all things Jim Henson, the way Jim Henson made art, and the way he was creative and the community of creators, and his product, the joy he gave the world for the short time he was here. I never really thought about it, but it’s a large part of why I live my life in the way that I do. It’s a mixture of the profound and totally bonkers and ridiculous. Both of those things can be true at the same [time], where you can teach people and remind people about love while making them laugh. I never thought about it until right now — it’s an aha moment for me — but I think Jim Henson is kind of like the person that I walk with and through in the way that I am.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.