Page 5 - Hawaii Island MidWeek - May 19, 2021

Young Star Dreams Of A Life On Broadway
FROM PAGE 4
Award-winning actor Sutton Foster, whom Kailee first met while in middle school and whom the teenager has always viewed as a beacon of encour- agement.
for fun and not be too worried about it.”
with people like Sutton Foster tells you that you have a good voice, well, that makes an im- pression.”
Kailee’s name in the bright lights of Broadway one day soon.
soon after, she fully embraced the challenge. In fact, Kailee grew so comfortable in her role that during the filming of a scene with actor Chi McBride, who plays Capt. Lou Grover in the series, she inadvertent- ly cut him off before he could deliver his line.
“But he was just joking and everything turned out to be to- tally fine.”
“I’ ve always looked up to Sutton because I love her pos- itive attitude in musical the- ater,” gushes Kailee, a former Shooting Star with Diamond Head Theatre who landed her first big role in DHT’s White Christmas in 2014. “One of her sayings that I usually come back to is, ‘Say yes to opportu- nity.’ Growing up, I was really nervous of stepping out there. I was really personable once I met someone, but I was also really shy and tentative at first, and I was also nervous about change and trying new things.
Another of Kailee’s staunchest advocates is ac- complished musical director and conductor Michael Rafter. They first met during a musical theater camp in New York City when she was 11, and since that encounter, Rafter has evolved into her most-trusted mentor.
Ultimately, Kailee knows that if she’s going to wind up at the “top of the heap,” as Ol’ Blue Eyes Frank Sinatra once sang, she’ ll need more than just influential supporters; she’ll need to show Broadway producers she’s got the chops to succeed.
“That would be my dream — to have a long career in the performing arts,” she says.
That’s the hope, too, for Kailee and her Broadway aspi- rations: that everything will ul- timately turn out to be A-OK.
“But Sutton changed the game for me. Just learning to say yes to opportunity really helped to get me out there, to try new things and to audition
“Hearing that from him was just amazing! I mean I’d hear that a lot from my par- ents, but I always figured they were just being supportive and nice,” Kailee continues. “But when a man who’s working
Coupled with her al- ways-sunny personality and copious amounts of raw ener- gy, the world could be seeing
But rather than bailing on the opportunity, she turned to Rafter for advice. His counsel helped calm her nerves and
“He goes, ‘Woah, woah, woah! You stepped on my line!’” recalls Kailee, laugh- ing at the memory. “I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to do that!’ I was so worried that I had ruined the entire day.
“That’s why I keep coming back to theater and why I love it so much.”
“I’ ll never forget what he said to me then. He told me, ‘Wow! You have an incredible voice as a little girl,’” recalls Kailee, who at age 13 landed the role of Jane Banks in Mary Poppins, a musical staged in New York with a professional equity cast.
Thankfully, her big plans for the future have come with loads of preparation. Aside from years of experience as a dancer in hula, ballet, jazz and tap, she continues to hone her singing and acting skills un- der the watchful eyes of Tony Award-winning vocal coach Joan Lader and acting coach Christopher Hanke.
Interestingly, Kailee has also found a bit of success be- yond the stage and in front of TV cameras. Two years ago, she landed a small part in an episode of Hawai‘i Five-0. Initially, she was unsure about successfully pulling off the conniving character she was asked to play.
As she explains, “In theater, if you forget your line, you just keep going because you don’t have time to stand there and wait for someone to remember their line. So while filming, I said my line, but after 10 sec- onds, Chi still hadn’t said his. So, I kept going.”
In pondering her future, the gifted performer can’t help but look back briefly at the reason why she got involved in mu- sical theater. Beyond her love of singing and dancing, she simply wanted to tell “other peoples’ stories.”
“When I first got the script, I was like, ‘I can’t do this,’” recalls Kailee. “I’ ve never played a character like this — someone who was older, was keeping a secret and was a bad girl. I’ve always been a goody two-shoes!”
Suddenly, the veteran actor roared to life.
“It’s what attracted me to theater in the first place,” she notes. “It started with hula be- cause dance from the hula is all about sharing and passing on stories. Theater is the same. Every time you’re in a produc- tion, you get to tell a new story and get to become a new per- son and a new character.
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