Kelli O'Hara To Bring Big Broadway Vocals Out East

Starring as Nellie in the Lincoln Center’s Tony Award-winning revival of “South Pacific,” Kelli O’Hara listened to the male character Emile De Becque sing “This Nearly Was Mine.” But as a woman, Ms. O’Hara never had a chance to sing it herself.

To this Broadway leading lady—whom audiences have seen in “Jekyll & Hyde,” “Sondheim’s Follies,” “Sweet Smell of Success” and “Dracula,” to name a few—there’s no reason why songs typically sung by men can’t be sung by women, too. And during her performance on Saturday, August 20, at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center, she’ll do just that.

“I’m going to take a chance and sing men’s songs,” Ms. O’Hara said during a telephone interview last week. “There are these songs I’m in love with, but they’re songs that men sing in shows.”

In addition to the “South Pacific” tune, Ms. O’Hara said Stephen Sondheim’s “Finishing the Hat,” written for a male voice, is also on her set list, along with other tracks from her second studio album, “Always,” which was released in May.

The chanteuse wouldn’t divulge any more hints, though—just that she is changing up the show from her last performance in the Hamptons, also at the PAC, two years ago.

“I’m bringing a trio. I’m bringing another side of me,” she said. “Plus, two summers ago, I was about 8¾-months pregnant. So it was an interesting show. I’m glad to be coming back as my normal self.”

Ms. O’Hara was 10 years old when she took the stage for the first time, she recalled. It was during a talent show at her elementary school in Oklahoma.

“That’s when I got the bug,” she said. “I didn’t know what it would mean, but I knew I wanted to sing.”

Coming up through the next generation of theater starlets, the now 35-year-old mother never imagined she would come to grace stages across the country, she said.

“I didn’t grow up in a place where that was considered,” she said. “It was a dream. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to sing, and sing for the rest of my life?’ It wasn’t until I was in college that I realized I could move to New York and do it for a living, or at least try.”

With just a couple of suitcases packed, Ms. O’Hara hopped on a plane to Manhattan in September 1998 and didn’t look back, she said. What came next was “a lot of ignorance and stupidity,” she said.

“Honestly, I don’t think I would have ever moved from Oklahoma if I knew more than I did,” she said. “Ignorance is bliss.”

Two years later, the budding Broadway star debuted in “Jekyll & Hyde.” But Ms. O’Hara said she considers her true stage premiere to have occurred during her next show, “Sondheim’s Follies, Sweet Smell of Success,” where she was able to learn from the veterans of theater—including her leading man, John Lithgow—she recalled.

Ms. O’Hara has a fan in Clare Bisceglia, the executive director of the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center.

“I simply adore her,” Ms. Bisceglia said during a telephone interview last week. “She captured my attention in ‘The Light in the Piazza.’ She just had a breathtaking performance in that, and then in ‘South Pacific.’ When she’s on the stage, she totally commands your full attention.”

In 2005, Ms. O’Hara starred in “The Light in the Piazza,” composed by Adam Guettel, whose mother is Hamptons resident Mary Rodgers Guettel—the daughter of Richard Rodgers of the famed composing duo, Rodgers & Hammerstein.

Ms. O’Hara’s most recent studio album, “Always,” is a product of her live shows, she said, adding that her first CD wasn’t an accurate representation of her in-concert favorites, which are constantly changing. Album-wise, the singer said she’s unsure what will come next.

“I’ve thrown around the idea of country, and I also want to make an album that has a lot of throwback stuff,” she said. “I want to make a more of a ’40s album, a concept album. The thing is, I can’t stop. It’s endless, the kinds of albums I want to make.”

But one thing is for sure for audiences in Westhampton Beach this Saturday, in that they can expect a lot of tunes from the Great American Songbook, she said.

“I’m not a pop singer, I’m not going to be bringing radio pop,” she said. “I stick to things I like to communicate with.”

Kelli O’Hara will perform on Saturday, August 20, at 8:30 p.m. at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $70, $85 or $100. To purchase tickets or for more information, call the box office at 288-1500 or visit whbpac.org.