Modesto native made her ‘Wicked’ Broadway debut. But coronavirus puts dream on hold
Dreams don’t know about bad timing. Or global pandemics. Or self quarantining.
They just know about hard work and determination and perseverance. And, now thanks largely to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, patience.
Patience is what Modesto native Lindsay Pearce is practicing now — along with social distancing and self-isolation just like the rest of us. Pearce made her Broadway debut as the star of “Wicked” on Feb. 25, just a little over two weeks before the coronavirus crisis halted life as we know it in New York City and then the rest of the country.
With less than a dozen shows under her belt, Pearce’s Broadway run abruptly ended March 12, and has been awaiting its return.
When the shutdown news was announced, Pearce had just spent the day in New York with her boyfriend, who was visiting from Orange County, and was taking him to the airport when her phone buzzed.
“I stopped dead in my tracks and showed it to him. I was like, ‘Am I not going to work tonight?’ I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “I was like, ‘I think we all just lost our jobs?’ ”
Since that day she has been out of work — waiting first in New York and now with her partner in California for the virus to pass and finding ways to fill the time and keep her voice and body sharp for when the stage lights come back up.
The role of Elphaba, the green-skinned Wicked Witch of the West in this reimagining of the “Wizard of Oz” story, would be a dream for any actress. Made famous by, and earning a Tony Award for, Idina Menzel, the role was one Pearce had set her sights on since she first saw the touring show with her mother on her 18th birthday.
Getting her start on Central Valley stages
At age 28, she had achieved it — after years of hard work and perseverance on stages from Modesto to Hollywood. The actress and singer, who first gained widespread regional fame in 2010 as the inaugural winner of the Valley Talent Project, had been a regular since age 6 in shows with Opera Modesto, Denair Gaslight Theater, Sonora’s Stage 3 Theatre, Turlock Youth Performing Arts and Modesto Junior College.
You can choose your favorite sports metaphor (remember sports?) to compare what it meant for Pearce to be cast as Elphaba in her first-ever Broadway show. Grand slam. Hole in one. Hat trick — I mean, she did wear a big one for the show.
Leading up to her opening night of “Wicked,” Pearce said coronavirus was on her mind but on the back burner. Most of her energy was being spent learning the music and choreography, getting used to the 17-pound costume, hitting her marks and figuring out how to do it all over again eight times a week.
She said the experience of being in her first Broadway show was like being in a controlled explosion.
“That must be what being a firework feels like. You blast, blast, blast for two and a half hours. Then you go home, decompress and do it again the next day,” she said. “It was also like being in the first couple weeks of school. You’re still figuring out everyone’s names and how to do everything. It was terrifying, but it was also bliss.”
She had scarcely completed her first week when Broadway’s notoriously ruthless regime took its toll. All that running to-and-fro on the Gershwin Theatre’s inclined stage gave her a hip injury, sidelining her for five shows. She came back at the end of her second week, and then was on stage Tuesday and for the first two-show Wednesday. But the next day everything went dark.
“I’m so grateful. I got to have a bite of that incredible pie that was ‘Wicked.’ Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise; now my hip will get to heal. And I know how hard that job is now,” she said in a phone interview from Southern California.
Pearce also feels lucky that the “Wicked” team has assured the cast and crew it will return to Broadway after the shutdown. Other shows were not so lucky, and have gone dark for good. The initial closure was until April 12, but now the shows won’t go on until at least June 7.
Many in the company, like Pearce, were given the option to suspend and extend their contracts. She had originally planned on starring in the show through year’s end. When “Wicked” returns, she will be given the option to rejoin the cast as Elphaba and extend her existing contract the amount of time Broadway was closed.
“They said you have a job if you want to come back to this one. And of course I do want to come back — I’ve barely started this one,” she said.
Being in New York during COVID-19 shutdown
After the shutdown, Pearce spent the next nearly three weeks holed up in her Midtown New York apartment not far from Times Square. She saw the streets that were normally overflowing with humanity become eerily empty. No cars, no tourists — just lots of people going in and out of the small bodegas and grocery stores trying to get essential supplies.
She said being in New York, the hardest-hit region in the United States with more than 10,000 deaths from COVID-19, was haunting. People had just begun to regularly applaud medical workers out their windows and balconies each evening in the city, when Pearce made the decision to come home to California.
Otherwise the uncertain return and long delay meant she would be alone in a city she was barely familiar with, having only moved to New York at the end of January.
“I was in a city full of people I didn’t know and obviously out of work. At first we thought we’d be back, like yesterday. But that obviously wasn’t happening. So the thought of being sick and alone in New York was terrifying,” Pearce said.
At the start of April she returned to California, and is living in Orange County with her boyfriend and now closer to her family and support system.
Her days are spent, like so many of our days now, trying to stay connected with family, friends and work through video calls. She has been FaceTiming workouts with a friend and is also continuing her vocal training through Skype. She has also started virtual guitar lessons, an attempt to master an instrument other than her voice.
Pearce has also been posting snippets of her self-isolation on her Instagram account, singing songs and sharing photos from her short-lived Broadway run.
More recently she has been asked to join podcasts and sing duets with other artists, as an outlet for all that pent-up creativity. She had just started getting to know the “Wicked” cast and crew when the curtain came down, but fully understands the reason and applauds the quick action of the Broadway community.
“The most respectful and human thing we could do is stay away from theater and not allow people to hurt each other without knowing it,” she said. “That’s our part, to stay home and not come back until it’s safely time. Because us being on stage and having our name in lights and the applause and even the paycheck, that’s not what matters. It’s keeping everyone safe. Because art will always survive and find a way.”
And despite her Broadway dream being temporarily deferred, Pearce says she knows how lucky she has been to make it there in the first place. She is healthy, her family is healthy and she is in a safe place.
“I am very, very lucky and privileged to have a job to come back to,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll ever complain about this job ever again. I feel like in my heart I was complaining about how hard it (being in the show) was before this happened. But I won’t ever complain again. I miss that job so much.”
This story was originally published April 15, 2020 at 3:14 PM.
