Interview: Broadway Veteran Lea Salonga Reflects on Her Touring and Broadway Experiences

In advance of her upcoming concert tour date in Chicago, legendary Broadway performer Lea Salonga chatted with BroadwayWorld about what audiences can expect from her Human Heart tour and her thoughts on representation in the current Broadway landscape.

I understand you broke your leg during a recent ski vacation in Japan. Can you talk to me about what it's been like touring with an injury?

Thankfully when I started touring my leg was healed up enough that I could travel, and I could at least be in a wheelchair and walk with crutches and get on stage and situate myself. My recovery is still in progress, but I'm not using crutches anymore. But it's all good. All the concert halls have made concessions for me. People find a stool for me to sit on and an apple box for me to put my feet on...TSA has also been really nice. They really know what to do when someone is in a wheelchair.

The title of your tour is Human Heart. Can you tell me more about why you decided on that title, and how it reflects your song choices?

"Human Heart" is the title of Erzulie's big, big song in ONCE ON THIS ISLAND, and we named it after that. The song choices reflect different aspects of human emotion and all different kinds of love that have been represented in the show.

You're certainly no stranger to touring. What made you decide to go back on the road now with the Human Heart?

Well, I'm not in a Broadway show right now. It just felt like the right thing to do. When I'm not in a Broadway show, that's when I'm touring. It's less punishing on the body than doing an eight show a week stint.

As a performer, how do you prepare for a concert tour where you're essentially playing the role of yourself, and how might that differ from when you're preparing for a musical theater role?

The nice thing about doing musical theater is that you have at least 3-4 weeks of rehearsal with an entire company. That's probably the part about doing a musical that I miss most. It's that collaborative spirit in which a show is created. That said, though, it's nice to depend upon me, myself, and I when I'm preparing for concerts. I just try to get as much of the material in my body as I can.

From Kim in MISS SAIGON to Jasmine in ALADDIN to Mulan to most recently Erzulie in ONCE ON THIS ISLAND, you have a history of playing some strong and iconic women on the stage and in film. Can you talk to me about what you see as the common thread between these roles, and what drew you to them?

With Eponine and with Fantine [in LES MISÉRABLES], and with Kim, it's love and it's pretty much going to the ends of the earth for that. It seems to be the one thing that threads all of them together is love. And it's all different kinds of love: Love for family, love even if the other person isn'tgiving them that same kind of love in return. It makes sense that at the end of it the last role I get to play is being the goddess of love, [Erzulie in ONCE ON THIS ISLAND].

Your career launched with MISS SAIGON. But it also originally garnered quite a bit of controversy over the representation of the Asian characters in the story. Can you talk to me about where you think the Broadway landscape is now in terms of the representation of Asian characters on the stage? What excites you about what's happening now, and what do you think still needs to improve?

I think now the stories that are currently on Broadway the characters could be inhabited by a person of any racial background. I just saw HADESTOWN and any one of those roles could be played by anyone. Eurydice is being played by Eva Noblezada, who's Asian and Latin. You have people on stage of different shades of brown. It's like a Pantone palette. There are beiges and browns, and you're looking at it and seeing it up on the stage and it's really exciting. It's really wonderful to see.

As far as what can be improved, I think as long as you see the faces [that's important]. Now there's a Hamilton who's Asian, and there has been an Eliza who has been Asian. You have a Freddy Eynsford-Hill [in MY FAIR LADY] who's African-American. You have all these stories. And you are casting people of whatever race to play them. And I guess it shows that we all have so much more in common than we don't, as far as storytelling.

I would like to see more work produced specific to certain ethnic groups' stories. I'd love to see more projects like ALLEGIANCE or IN THE HEIGHTS to further push the commonality.

What can fans expect from the Chicago stop on the tour?

I think they can expect a lot of surprising choices as far as the music. I think they can expect the "greatest hits" that they've associated with my voice, but we've also included so much pop music. It's been a lot of fun.

After the tour, what other projects do you have on the horizon?

A good long sleep. That's what I've got planned!

Finally, I'm a big fan of the series CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND, which just had its series finale. Do you have any fun stories to share from your appearance on the show?

I had a choreography session with Kathryn Burns, who's the choreographer of CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND. We would try to explore, "How would this woman, Aunt Myrna, move?" She's a woman who's so full of herself and thinks she's the bee's knees because she was on STAR SEARCH. She's self-indulgent and annoying. A lot of us have that relative. I know I certainly do. She gets up on stage, and we see that she's talented. We see why she got three and three-quarter stars. But we also needed to see why she's annoying. Accordingly, hand movements needed to be a certain way and head movements needed to be a certain way...When we were on the set, Kathryn Burns would say, "Oh, we need to do this because it's funny."

I was also so thrilled to be there for the wedding [of character Josh Chan's sister, Jayma]. The men were on hoverboards wearing barongs. That's just awesome.

See Lea Salonga during the Chicago stop of Lea Salonga: The Human Heart Tour on Friday, May 10 at the Copernicus Center, 5216 West Lawrence Avenue. Visit LeaSalonga.com to purchase tickets.