From H-Town to Broadway
Tony contender Goldsberry of 'Hamilton' was bitten by acting bug here.
When Renée Elise Goldsberry auditioned for the musical “Hamilton,” she was given a demo of the song “Satisfied” by the show’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda.
She had no context for the song other than the lyrics, which Miranda rattled off with the speed of a feisty drum roll. Slowed down, they convey a heart-wrenching push/ pull dynamic between physical and intellectual connection and familial obligation. Love transforms into longing.
Goldsberry took to the song instantly.
“I understood it immediately,” she says, laughing, “once I figured out the words. Lin’s demo, it took a second because the words were coming out so fast. But I immediately understood it emotionally. I didn’t have any back story, but I didn’t need it to understand it emotionally. I was moved deeply.”
“Satisfied” is one key piece in “Hamilton,” the hit, hip-hop-inflected musical about the life of the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton.
A thorn bush of emotional content lyrically, “Satisfied” requires Goldsberry, whose career in theater, film and TV began as a child in Houston, to rap and sing. And it establishes a key theme in the show: The tenor of history can
“Houston was a perfect place to create a love of theater. The Ensemble, the Alley, even as a kid, I could tell the community there embraced theater.” Renée Elise Goldsberry
vary depending on the storyteller. The song is a showpiece for the character of Angelica Schuyler, which earned a Tony nomination for Goldsberry.
Tonight Goldsberry, who has already won a Drama Desk Award and a Lucille Lortel Award for her part in “Hamilton,” will learn if she’s earned a Tony for best performance by an actress in a featured role in a musical.
The success of “Hamilton” has people predicting a run of several awards during tonight’s telecast on CBS. But the impact of this musical has extended far beyond the Richard Rodgers Theatre, where it has played in New York for nearly a year. The awards and almost unanimous positive notices for “Hamilton” have created a curious situation as its cast of veterans is being treated like newly discovered talents.
Goldsberry is a fine example of that phenomenon.
Her long theater background includes originating the role of Nettie in “The Color Purple” more than a decade ago. She spent parts of 2007 and 2008 playing Mimi in “Rent,” filling the role when it was filmed live for TV. And Goldsberry has over the years spent time on the small screen, including two dozen episodes of “The Good Wife” as attorney Geneva Pine, more than 250 on the soap opera “One Life to Live” and nearly 50 on “Ally McBeal.”
But “Hamilton” has proved a career-changer for its cast members, seven of whom earned Tony nominations. Goldsberry was in the show when it opened Off Broadway in early 2015 and remained in the role when it moved into larger confines on Broadway later that year. Like the rest of the featured cast, she’s now a Grammy winner, thanks to the cast recording, and she’s performed for the president and Prince, who took in the show in March, just weeks before he died.
Goldsberry, 45, regrets not stealing a glance at the latter during the show. “He would’ve been visible because he was in the box seats, and the cast was aware he was there,” she says. “I wish I’d looked up, but I intentionally decided not to. It wasn’t until we bowed that I did, and he’d already slipped out.
“It’s been amazing, the opportunities that have come with this show. We’ve met superstars and politicians, people over every generation. And also kids in the audience, which is great to see in the theater. We’ve had high school kids perform raps they’ve written on our stage. And their performances have been amazing.” Falling in love
Goldsberry’s start in theater goes back to a summer camp at HITS in Houston taught by Carolyn Franklin, who founded the youth theater company.
Goldsberry was 8 and had just moved with her family from California.
“She had a younger brother who was shy, so I think her mother thought it would be good for him to take theater classes,” Franklin says. “And she figured Renée was there anyway, so she enrolled her, too. She was this thin little girl with a big, big voice.”
“I remember we did ‘Guys and Dolls’ that first summer, and even then to me it was more than doing a show,” Goldsberry says. “I fell in love with it immediately and deeply. It created a monster. I knew the minute the play was over — I was sad when it was over, but I knew it’s what I wanted to do the rest of my life. Houston was a perfect place to create a love of theater. The Ensemble, the Alley, even as a kid, I could tell the community there embraced theater.”
Franklin recalls Goldsberry standing out in a production of “The King and I.”
“I can still picture her in this gold costume singing ‘I Have Dreamed,’” she says. “This beautiful little girl singing this melody, it was magical. She was so poised and comfortable performing, even then.”
Goldsberry went to high school in Michigan, where her father lived, and then studied in Carnegie Mellon’s storied drama department. But she always kept a foot in Houston. Her mother, Betty Sanders, still lives here. And Goldsberry would return to take roles in productions at the Alley Theatre and Houston Grand Opera.
“That time and that work made me realize you could be a successful actor staying in a region other than New York or Los Angeles, if that region supported it. Houston was that way. Pittsburgh. There are a few others but not many. So I’ve always loved going back.” Power of perspective
Goldsberry was living in Los Angeles when she was offered the part of Nala in the Broadway production of “The Lion King,” which opened doors in New York’s theater scene.
Eventually, those doors led to Miranda’s demo for “Satisfied.”
“Even before I knew the story behind it, that song moved me deeply,” she says.
The depth of the “Hamilton” cast reflects the depth of the production’s writing, and each of the 10 principal characters has standout moments.
“Satisfied” is just one for Goldsberry, who imbues the song with the sense of regret that can accompany big decisions. She describes it as “beautiful and decisive and difficult.”
Angelica is the oldest of three sisters from a wealthy family. She and the musical’s titular Founding Father meet and forge an instant connection that she chooses to push aside. As the oldest daughter in a family with no sons, she’s expected to marry for status, so she introduces her younger sister Eliza to the ambitious but financially strapped Hamilton instead.
Eliza becomes the more central part of “Hamilton’s” narrative, but Angelica transforms into a crucial storytelling figure, especially when tragedy requires an outside perspective.
“There’s a beautiful storytelling device that Lin uses, where reality is dictated by the lyrics,” she says. “The ‘who lives, who dies, who tells your story’ — that changes through the show. And the person telling the story changes what the story is. The narrative keeps getting taken over.”
Goldsberry’s Angelica takes the lead on “It’s Quiet Uptown,” a devastating song about the wake made by an unimaginable loss.
“In moments where Eliza is devastated, Angelica has to be the one to deliver the words,” she says.
The emotional content in “Hamilton” is just one draw. Miranda deliberately looked to a multicultural cast to, as he put it, tell a “story about America then, told by America now.” The show is reverent toward Broadway history, with references to “Rent” and “South Pacific” and numerous other shows, while adding hip-hop, pop, ragtime and other varieties of music to the mix.
“It’s changing how musical theater is perceived and made,” Franklin says. “My first thought about rap in a musical was that it sounded terrible to me. But you hear the Founding Fathers, these rebellious young hotheads, arguing in a rap, it’s brilliant.”
Franklin points out the show’s appeal to younger listeners who had no frame of reference for Broadway, which makes her think of Goldsberry showing up at her summer camp at age 8.
“Things like this can change a child’s life.” Approaching the end
Goldsberry says the “Hamilton” cast speaks of the Tonys as the end of something.
The show opened in July 2015, so contracts are nearing their end. New performers are likely to begin making their way into the show.
“It feels a little like the end,” Goldsberry says. “So I’ve looked back a little, and I marvel that we pulled it off. It feels like there are pieces of art that need to be in the world, and this is one of them. We don’t really know what comes next, but we’re still a pretty humbled group. I think we recognize this is bigger than all of us.”