ShowbizU: Starring in "Wicked"- Alli Mauzey & Tim Kashani

What do you get when you have a Broadway professional and a camera crew? Long story short, you get a lot of cool info when you get Showbiz U Luminaries. Actress Sally Mazzie made her Broadway debut as Brenda in Hairspray. She also created the role of Lenora in Broadway's Cry-Baby. Nowadays, she takes the Broadway stage nightly as Glinda in Wicked and shares her story and thoughts on the business of acting. Thank you, Ali, for joining us today in Sardi's. Is your picture up here anywhere yet?

Um, not yet.

Okay, yet being the key word. You are a performer as well as many other tricks in your bag of things that you like to do. When did you know, at what age did you go, this is cool, I'd like to do this?

Well, I always thought it was cool because all my friends were doing it. It was like a social thing for me growing up. It was just something that I was kind of good at and it was fun, but it really wasn't until I made my Broadway debut in Hairspray when I was getting, making, you know, a professional paycheck and I was living in New York City and I had my own apartment and I was like, wait a minute, I'm actually, I can make a living doing this. I just, it was on my radar and it wasn't on my radar. I don't think it clicked until I was doing it. And then I was like, oh my gosh, I have to always do this.

What was like the first time you opened up that paycheck?

Well, I was like, well, I had some student loans to pay off first, so. A lot of that—

Thank you, here you go.

Yes, exactly. But a lot of that went to some student loans. But yeah, after a while, once I kind of saw my bank account grow— I'd never really experienced that, because I'd just done smaller theater things as a kid where you make like $100 or something like that. So then I realized I can feed myself and I can live in New York City and even save some money at the same time.

And how did you get— how did you land that show?

Hairspray was my Broadway debut. I landed Hairspray— I went to college at NYU, and then randomly I broke my foot right before graduation, and it— I don't know, it's really hard to get around with a broken foot in New York City. So I moved back to California where I'm from for the summer, and in the meantime I just— I kept taking voice lessons with my teacher in LA, and my voice teacher encouraged me to, well, A, just like get out there and just perform as much as I could because you never know who's gonna watch, and he encouraged me to do this competition. I don't remember what it was called, called. And you get awards, but the point of it really being is you're getting in front of agents and things like that. So I did that, and I got in front of some agents, and that's how I booked my first agent, was through that. I so didn't want to do that competition, but I understood now what he was getting at. From that first agent that I got, Hairspray was one of the first auditions he sent me on, actually. So yeah, I just went through a couple auditions out in LA, and I got cast for the first national tour. First, and then— but that wasn't going on the road for like a good 9 months. And in the meantime, the girl playing the same track as me, Brenda, she was one of the nicest kids in town. She booked another Broadway show. She was in the Broadway company and she booked a different Broadway show, and they asked if I'd like to come join the Broadway company for 6 months before I got on the road. So I joined the Broadway company, which was cool because it was still basically the original company, and it was before the Tony Awards. So I got to experience all that. I got to be on the Tony Awards. It was kind of like a— and then, you know, it was a hit show, won Best Musical amongst many other awards. And it was— I had cast members, you know, who'd been in the business longer than I have, and they're like, just so you know, like, not every Broadway show is like this. Not— this is not— not everybody gets on their feet at the end of a Broadway show and like it's like a big party, you know. So it was pretty, pretty neat. First go.

You mentioned the A-word, the agent. For a lot of performers, when to get the agent, when not to get the agent, when to get the union card, when not to get the union card. Let's tackle each one of those.

Yeah.

When do you feel it's important to get representation?

I would have found it hard to book a union job had I not had an agent. Um, I know— I don't know if it still exists, the Equity candidacy points program.

There is, yes.

So I mean, you could definitely do a bunch of Equity shows and get points. Um, I just think that takes a long time, but it's possible. But, um, I— my first agent told me— I was in union when I was with him— and he said, you know, like, there's a lot of good non-equity stuff out there, you know. And if you can kind of make a living at that until you book the right project to kind of catapult you where you're going to be consistently working with equity more, there's no like rush, you know. So I did do maybe a couple like non-equity things like in LA, and then when I booked Hairspray, it's kind of like a no-brainer. I'm going to join the union.

You're on Broadway, you don't have a choice.

Yeah, exactly. So I could have either been like, I'm not going to take this job, and I'm just going to be non-union, you know, but at that point. And then, you know, once you're union, say for whatever reason you lose your agent or whatever, it's still easier than if you're non-union to get seen for the bigger union stuff.

And you started your trajectory to get to— which a lot of people will know you as Glinda, probably seen you in one incarnation or another. What was that process?

Getting that role?

Yeah.

Again, I was in Los Angeles. I've booked 2 more Broadway shows from Los Angeles, which is Crazy, 'cause a lot of my friends who graduated from NYU, you know, were pounding the pavement and they're like, "What do I have to do, move to LA to like get a job in New York?" You know? It's just interesting. LA's got a smaller musical theater pool out there.

Right.

So I actually thought that was— it worked out well for me because it was easier to get seen. There was less of us out there, you know? Okay, my process with Glinda. I had gone in for an audition just 'cause they were looking for future replacements, but they weren't looking for anybody right away. What's interesting is my agent wasn't sure. I got sides for both Glinda and Elphaba, and it was kind of like, maybe you should just go in for both. And I thought that was maybe not the best decision because then I think you confuse people and then they don't know what to do with you, you know? So I chose to go with Glinda and had a great audition. And then I think like 6 months later they called, they were coming back to LA. The associate director and I met and we did a work session which lasted like 20 minutes. And she just kind of helped fine-tune and helped me with the character before I was going to go in with the creative team, which was, you know, director and bookwriter and music, and it's basically everybody except Stephen Schwartz couldn't make it. And so I did— that was kind of like my— what I thought was my final audition. What was a trip is it was in a church because we were in a studio before, but there was a big dance audition with a big beat going on behind it, so casting decided to go somewhere else. And it's not weird that we were at that church because actually I'd been to those auditions before at that church, but I'd never actually been like on the pulpit at that church doing an audition. So that was kind of a trip, but it's fine.

Well, now when you look out at the audience and/or at the stage door, you see all these people appreciating your work. What are some of those moments that you just go, wow, this is really cool?

You know, at the end of shows, Especially like when you're at Wicked and everybody's kind of on their feet at the end of the show and you get to take that bow by yourself. I take it with Elphaba, but it's really humbling. It's really cool. You have all— you have like, I don't know, I don't know how big that theater is, 1,700? Am I making that up?

No, it's a large theater.

It's a very warm feeling to get all these people there just like liking what you did that night. You might meet someone who's going through a rough time, like, you made me laugh tonight, thank you so much. And I'm just like, oh my gosh, that made my night. So important. I'm so grateful I came to work tonight and I have the opportunity to make that person laugh for, you know, 2 and a half hours, whatever, you know. So