Nikka Graff Lanzarone
It's been an extremely busy year for Nikka Graff Lanzarone, the triple threat who made her Broadway debut this past season in the world-premiere musical Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, based on the film of the same name, at the newly restored Belasco Theatre. Following that production, the actress was seen in the intimate environment at 52 Mercer Street in the Transport Group's first major New York City revival of Michael John LaChiusa's Hello Again, the musical that follows the sexual encounters of various lovers. Lanzarone and her co-stars received a Drama League Award nomination for Distinguished Performance for their work in that critically acclaimed production. And, now, following over a dozen auditions, the singer-actress-dancer has landed the role of merry murderess Velma Kelly in the long-running, Tony-winning revival of Chicago at the Ambassador Theatre. Earlier this week, following her first performance in the hit production, I had the chance to chat with the good-natured performer, who sprinkles her conversation with much laughter; that interview follows:

Question: How did your first performance in Chicago go?
Lanzarone: You know, considering, it went really well. There are always so many variables that you are not expecting when you finally go in, and there's the lights, and the sound, and all of the people, and everything that makes a show a show. But, getting shot out of that cannon was surprisingly not as nerve-wracking as I anticipated. [Laughs.]

Question: Is this the first time you've replaced in a show?
Lanzarone: It's the first time I've ever replaced in a principal track, yeah. I replaced in ensemble tracks, but it's a little safer there [laughs] — there are so many people around you, and they can sort of shove you where you need to be.

	Lanzarone in Chicago.
	photo by Jeremy Daniel

Question: When did you start performing?
Lanzarone: As a tiny, tiny child — in ballet class from when I was like two-and-a-half. I come from a long line of performers, so it was always something that was around and relevant.

Question: Before you became a professional yourself, were there any artists you admired, any singers or actors who influenced you?
Lanzarone: Oh, wow — absolutely. There are so many to name. I grew up worshiping old-school musical theatre legends. That was sort of a thing that was important in my house. Obviously, the big ones — your Chitas and your Lizas and your Judys, but I was always so interested in the way that dancers worked together, and so they really became my heroes more than any one performer. It was more about the way that a show functioned as a whole, and the way that everybody came together every night and pulled it off. That was the real draw for me — that community feeling.

Question: When do you think performing changed for you from being a hobby to when you knew it would be your career? Or maybe you always knew it was going to be your career?
Lanzarone: Yeah, it was never a hobby — it was always going to be my career. [Laughs.] I remember I was six years old, and we were in New York on vacation because the only place we ever went on vacation when I was a kid, pretty much, was New York. My parents are both New Yorkers, and we still have a lot of family here, and my first Broadway show was Jerome Robbins' Broadway, and I remember still, sort of out of my six-year-old eyes, seeing these boys in the On the Town section just dancing, and I was like, "Wait a minute! What is this? Whoa! You can do that, for real?!" And that was it.

	Lanzarone in Women on the Verge.
	photo by Paul Kolnik

Question: When did you get to New York yourself?
Lanzarone: Six years ago. I graduated from Boston Conservatory and then moved right here.

Question: How did your Broadway debut in Women on the Verge… come about?
Lanzarone: I did the very last workshop of the show, and they invited me to stay along, which was quite kind. [Laughs.]

Question: Do you remember your first night on Broadway? I'm always curious as to how the actuality lives up to the expectations that were in your mind.
Lanzarone: I mean the entire show was so logistical and choreographed backstage — just as choreographed backstage as it was on stage — so for me it was really, really, absurdly thrilling to feel like I was getting to finally be a part of this thing — of this community, of this group of people — and then also trying really hard not to get so swept up in the romanticism of [it] that I would get run over by a phone booth backstage or something like that. [Laughs.] There's nothing like it. The feeling of: you get to do a show, and then go home to your own apartment, and sleep in your own bed because you are doing a show on Broadway, and you're at home. It's little things like that that I can't compare to anything.