Christmas to the Hilty
Megan Hilty stops by the Kennedy Center for a Christmas cabaret
Over the past decade actress Megan Hilty has played Glinda in Wicked, Doralee Rhodes in 9 to 5: The Musical and Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but she’s most widely known as the ambitious Ivy Lynn on Smash, the NBC television series about the making of a new musical.
“People kind of see me as playing … the mean girl,” Hilty says. She doesn’t mind. “I’m an actor, so if they think that I am that person, then I’ve done my job. And then I would like to turn around and surprise them with other stuff.”
That “other stuff” includes cabaret, which the Washington State native started doing a couple of years ago at the suggestion of her manager. “The idea made me so nervous because I just didn’t think this was going to be for me,” she says. “But it turned out I really, really love it.” The second weekend in December, Hilty will stop by the Kennedy Center to offer her first Christmas cabaret, accompanied by a three-piece band including her husband Brian Gallagher on guitar.
“We’ve done some fun new arrangements and some interesting medleys.” Naturally, they’ll also perform songs from her Broadway repertoire, as well as last year’s pop album It Happens All The Time and, of course, Smash. On that show, according to a New Yorker critic, Hilty made her character “feel like a real Broadway diva: sexy, funny, ambitious, insecure, at once selfish and giving.” The show, Hilty says, “was a chance of a lifetime to get to do everything I’ve ever wanted to do in one job — TV and theater, singing and acting. And a great character on top of it.”
The concert might even include a song originating from one of musical theater’s biggest mean girls — or really, mean woman. “My dream role is Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd,” Hilty says, adding with a wink: “But I’ve got a couple years before I can play that.” — Doug Rule
Megan Hilty performs Saturday, Dec. 13, at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. Tickets are $65. Call 202-467-4600 or visit kennedy-center.org.
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