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Like any great performer, Mandy Gonzalez has a pre-stage ritual—but this one doesn’t involve herbal tea, meditation, or a special playlist.
All this Broadway star needs to do is catch up with “Hamilton” lead actor Javier Muñoz before making her way to her dressing room a half hour before curtain up.
And only then does she put on her corset.
Eight times a week, Ms. Gonzalez transforms into Angelica Schuyler Church onstage at the Richard Rodgers Theatre—a strong woman much in line with her portrayals of Elphaba and Nina Rosario in “Wicked” and “In the Heights,” respectively—while her solo cabaret show, “Raise the Roof,” allows her to get a bit more intimate, as she will on Monday night, July 31, at Guild Hall in East Hampton.
“It’s a very personal show—a little bit of tears, but mostly laughter,” she said. “I’m not a character. I’m myself and I can tell these stories from my life, a full life, I’ve lived up until this point.”
The daughter of two working parents, a young Mandy Gonzalez spent the majority of her free time with her grandmother, who had a love for Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli and Eydie Gorme—“every big belter out there,” she said, “and we’d listen to that in the car.”
The little girl was her only grandchild who ever sang back. And it was in a big way.
“My grandma would say, to my mom, ‘You know, Mandy’s really loud. We have to put her into lessons because I’m afraid she’s gonna hurt herself,’” Ms. Gonzalez said. “I was trying to sing like Eydie Gorme when I was 5.”
She would eventually learn how to sing from a woman who worked at the local Showboat Dinner Theater, which regularly staged musicals—while serving all-you-can-eat pickles, the main takeaway for Ms. Gonzalez, who is a “huge pickle fan”—and gave her the preparation she needed for her first job out of high school as a backup singer for Bette Midler.
The veteran performer put her up at the Plaza Hotel for two nights, and when she returned to California, it didn’t feel like she belonged there anymore. “New York is where I want to be,” she said to herself. And with the money she made from that gig, she promptly moved.
“I never stayed in the Plaza again, but I went to Brooklyn. At that time, it was affordable, but now Williamsburg is crazy. It’s like the Plaza Hotel. So now I live in Jersey,” she laughed. “Back then, I was ready to go [to New York]. I had a lot of people in my life who were like, ‘I don’t think you should go, it’s really far from home, you’re gonna get homesick,’ but I just had this drive in me that I could do it—and I think I got that from my grandma the most, who was like, ‘I want Mandy to follow her dreams.’ And so I did.
“Once I moved here, I told my mom I’d just be here for a year. And here I am, 16 years later.”
Her early days in the city were spent hustling—auditioning during the day and taking odd jobs at night, from bagging groceries to working at a coffee shop. “I even worked as a coat check girl,” she said. “It’s like, you’re young, you’re cute, you get pretty good tips—which was nice so I could survive.”
But then, it happened. She booked her first job through an open call for an off-Broadway production of “Eli’s Comin,” which won her an Obie Award. “My life kept going from there,” she said. “I never went back to coat checking. But I always give good tips because I know the people in there are working hard.”
She would go on to star in five Broadway productions before “Hamilton”—most famously “In the Heights” and “Wicked.” She was one of the first to see it Off-Broadway at The Public Theater, where she sat in the theater first cheering, then weeping at its brilliance, she said. When the soundtrack came out, she learned every song, secretly hoping to be part of it someday.
When the call came, she hesitated a moment—“You know, to seem cool,” she said—and then immediately accepted, running to her husband in joyous tears.
After all, she was coming home. It was the same theater where she performed in “In the Heights.” And, once again, she was acting opposite Mr. Muñoz, who was then Usnavi, and now is Alexander Hamilton.
“When I first walked through the stage doors at Richard Rodgers, it was like a rush of emotion because that’s where I spent two years of my life doing ‘In the Heights,’” she said. “I’m actually in my same dressing room and it’s the same stagehands and it’s the same doorman, Jimmy, and Angelo, at night, and it’s the same creative team. I did feel like I was home, and I was home playing this character that is so much more mature than I was when I played Nina Rosario, and I had matured. I had had a kid. I learned what it was about, what the sacrifice was about and all that my parents had given me.”
Her power and strength comes from her childhood, and informs every decision she makes as an actor.
“I have fans that come from all aspects of my career to the stage door at ‘Hamilton,’ from fans that loved Nina Rosario, fans that loved Elphaba, and now fans that love Angelica. I feel really proud of that, that I represent characters that are empowering young women and women of all ages.
“I think women can do anything,” she continued. “And I think it’s important, as it was for me when I first started, looking at Bette Midler and seeing how she did it all. She was the producer, she was the director, she helped choreography, she was the singer. It helps young women to see themselves in a powerful way. I think when they see themselves like that when they’re young, they realize, ‘Oh, I can do that, too.’ And there are no limits. There are no limits anymore to what women can do and how they can change the world.”
“Raise the Roof,” starring Mandy Gonzalez, will be held on Monday, July 31, at 8 p.m. at Guild Hall in East Hampton. Tickets range from $40 to $85, or $38 to $80 for members. For more information, call 631-324-0806 or visit guildhall.org.
on Jul 24, 2017