Broadway and TV star Alex Newell readies an extraordinary playlist for Groton Hill
For a performer with such powerful pipes, Lynn native Alex Newell’s lips are sealed about what music they’ll be performing Sunday at Groton Hill Music Center in Groton. Though just 31, Newell already has a number of signature songs. There’s the roof-raising “Independently Owned,” belted by their brassy character Lulu in “Shucked,” a role for which Newell made history last year as the first nonbinary actor to win a Tony Award (followed that same evening by J. Harrison Ghee); the soaring “Mama Will Provide” from “Once on This Island”; songs associated with their time on “Glee” (“I Know Where I’ve Been”), where they played Unique, one of the first trans teenagers on network television; the “heart songs” from their stint as sharp-tongued, gender-fluid Mo on the series “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” (“This Little Light of Mine,” “Too Good at Goodbyes”), and original tunes from their own dance-pop records (“Kill the Lights” and “This Ain’t Over”). But press Newell about the show’s repertoire, and they remain coy: “It has to be mysterious.”
Newell spoke to the Globe via Zoom from Capri, Italy, where they’re busy filming the sequel to the 2018 movie “A Simple Favor” starring Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively.
Q. What can audiences anticipate from an Alex Newell concert?
A. It is all chaos. It is just a smorgasbord of storytelling. I think people have one preconceived notion of me, and so I try to tell stories about my life and hardships through song, that is hilarious and chaotic.
Q. Will it be a mix of Broadway and pop classics, your own original music, and songs associated with your career?
A. My concerts are always songs associated with me, for the most part. I may only be very young at 31, but I’ve lived a very long musical diaspora and over different genres, especially in musical theater. My claim to fame is breaking the barriers of the traditional songs I should be singing or what people think I should be singing. So it’s always a breath of fresh air. Just thinking about all of the songs that I know in my head, sometimes you just gotta get them out.
Q. Are you excited to be return ing home to Massachusetts? Will you have family and friends in the audience supporting you?
A. My mother still lives [in Massachusetts], so I’m always home. I don’t know how many people will journey out, and it’ll be a nice surprise if they do. It’s one thing to sing in front of a sea of people, but to sing in front of a sea of people that you actually know, it’s jarring. Like nobody wants to sing a song about their ex-boyfriend with their ex-boyfriend looking you dead in the face.
Q. So will the concert be personal and will you share some stories from your life?
A. You can’t just go song to song to song to song. You’ve got to serve the ball up before you hit it, and most of my songs come in at the punch line. The song is always the punch line.
Q. You’ll be coming to Groton straight from singing the Leading Player in the 50th anniversary concert of composer Stephen Schwartz’s “Pippin” at the London Palladium in late April. Is that a favorite show, and is the charmingly manipulative ringleader a character you’ve always wanted to play?
A. I think I fell in love with it when Patina Miller did it [on Broadway] in 2013. I was supposed to play the Leading Player at my high school in my junior year. But I booked “Glee” and had to go and film that for a little bit, and so I didn’t get to do my junior year musical. So it’s all full circle.
Q. What was it like getting to create the original character of Lulu in “Shucked” on Broadway last season?
A. They always say that you never really know you want something or need something until it’s in front of you, and I didn’t know that I needed or wanted that. I love that [the song] “Independently Owned” and what she stood for in finding your own strength has brought joy to so many people.
Q. How did you see yourself reflected in Lulu?
A. Now that I’m older, I realize it’s OK to be independent. I’ve created my entire career on my own and [I’ve] just been trying to forge my own path and become very successful at it. What did want to bring to her was it’s OK to want somebody but it’s also OK to still not lose your independence in someone, to not get lost in someone else.
‘No matter how you identify, there should be space for everyone.’ ALEX NEWELL, Lynn native who became the first nonbinary actor to win a Tony Award
Q. You and J. Harrison Ghee from “Some Like It Hot” were the first openly nonbinary performers ever nominated for Tony Awards, and you both went on to win in your categories last year. What was it like making history?
A. I hope that the trend continues and that it really opens people’s eyes about [gendered] categories and what they mean and how to really make them welcoming to more people. There are so many other performers just like us that don’t get to be seen and are overlooked. I hope they get those opportunities going forward. No matter who you are, no matter how you identify, there should be space for everyone, and these stories need to be told and deserve to be told.
Q. What was it like to be thrust into the spotlight on “Glee” at such a young age?
A. Everyone always says it’s wild. But it was so fast and saturated, it didn’t really affect me. I was still in school my senior year [at Bishop Fenwick High School in Peabody] when I filmed my first three episodes of “Glee.” Then after graduation, I had the summer off and I moved cross country [to LA] to film [season four of ] “Glee.” It wasn’t until leaving the show when you realize it’s probably for the best that you’re just constantly working.
Q. What spurred you to become a performer, to want to sing and act as a career?
A. When I was young, I just had so much fun doing it, I really didn’t think twice about it. As an adult, when drama happens on set or backstage, I look at everybody and say, “Honey, we’re all just adults playing make-believe. We’re playing dress-up. It’s not that deep. We’re not curing cancer.” And I think I learned that as a child — it was a sweet escape being on stage and having that hour or two of unabashed fun where you could play make-believe in front of people. I’m happy and fortunate to have a job in the thing that I’m really good at and that I happen to love. So working is a dream come true for me.