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BY LIBBY SLATE

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Megan Hilty burst onto Broadway fresh out of college in 2004 as

a standby for Glinda, the Good Witch of the North in Wicked,

brandishing a magic wand, natural ebullience and a crystalline voice

that led to her taking over the role for several years in New York and

Los Angeles.

Fifteen years after that Broadway debut, Hilty is still making

musical magic, performing with symphony orchestras and in her own

show in venues the world over. She brings her cabaret show to the

Samueli Theater November 14–16, singing musical theatre numbers

associated with her career milestones—Wicked, Broadway’s 9 to 5, the

television series Smash—as well as personal favorites.

“I actually prefer to perform in concert settings,” Hilty has said.

“I love being in complete control of the set list. And everybody in my

band is all very dear friends—or my husband.”

And, as she told the website WhatsOnStage.com, in her own

shows, “It’s the one time I’m not playing a character. At first, that was

actually scary to me, but after years of doing these concerts, I’ve grown

to love sharing my stories and favorite songs with people who only

know me through the characters I play—most of which I’m not like at

all in real life.”

The real-life Hilty is personable and effervescent, relating her

stories in a down-to-earth, “Ooh, you guys, I really want to tell you

this” manner that draws in her audiences and makes them feel like her

friends, even if only for her time on stage.

And then there’s her voice, a soaring soprano that denotes her

classical training mixed with the expert belting of a show-tune

veteran. After Wicked, Hilty played Dolly Parton’s role, Doralee

Rhodes, in the stage version of the film 9 to 5 and starred in New York

City Center productions of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Annie Get

Your Gun. In 2016 she was nominated for a Tony Award as Featured

Actress in a Play, for the non-musical farce Noises Off.

She also created the role of Ivy Lynn, a performer vying for the

starring role in a fictional Broadway musical about Marilyn Monroe in

the 2012–2013 television show Smash. While the series lasted only two

seasons, Hilty and the show developed such an impassioned following

that strangers still regularly stop her to ask if there will ever be a real

Broadway run of the fictional Bombshell.

Hilty loved Smash and its Marc Shaiman-Scott Wittman score so

much that she often opens her show with their number, “They Just Keep

Moving the Line,” about a performer trying to make it in showbiz.

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“It’s all about the underdog, which is something we all can identify

with,” she told Playbill.com. “Just trying desperately to get ahead and

feeling like for whatever reason or another, life just is not letting you.

It’s also an old-school type of [style] that I do.”

Look for at least one more number from Smash, perhaps “Let Me

Be Your Star” and/or the poignant “Don’t Forget Me.” From 9 to 5,

Hilty often sings a medley of the title tune and “Backwoods Barbie,” in

a style reminiscent of Parton’s.

“I see it as Dolly’s anthem,” Hilty told Playbill.com of “Backwoods

Barbie.” “It’s all about not judging a book by its cover. If you take a

minute to really get to know somebody, you’ll see that there are many

different layers to a person.”

There are also non-theater songs among the mix, such as Don

Henley’s “Heart of the Matter,” about moving on after a breakup—a

rare ballad on Hilty’s set list—and the hilarious novelty song “The

Alto’s Lament,” a fervent wish to forsake the usually monotonous

harmony assigned the alto voice part in favor of the lyrical soprano

melody.

And of course, there are songs from Hilty’s career-launching

Wicked, such as the tongue-in-cheek “Popular” and the testament to

the everlasting effects of friendship, “For Good.”

The bonding of two other friends is at the heart of a television

film Hilty did for Lifetime that airs in October and can be seen on

demand through mid-November: Patsy & Loretta, about the true-life

friendship of country music stars Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn. Hilty

plays Cline, who died in a 1963 plane crash when she was just 30.

“The movie is about this love story between these two friends,

these two female friends in particular,” Hilty says. “And that’s why I

wanted to be a part of it, because it’s so rarely done these days. It just

so happens to be this beautiful friendship between these two iconic

women.”

Portraying Cline was similar to her work in both Wicked and

9 to 5, she notes. “I’ve done a bunch of jobs where someone who’s

incredibly famous has already made the role iconic—Kristin

Chenoweth as Glinda and Dolly Parton as Doralee. And I drove

myself crazy trying to replicate Kristin [until I realized], there’s just

no way that I can replicate her. I was like, ‘You’ve got to stop. You have

to go make this your own; otherwise, it’s not going to be real. I’m not

as funny as this person, but I have to be okay with what I bring to the

table.’”

It was one of Hilty’s friends, Wicked co-star Eden Espinosa

(Elphaba) who introduced her to the man who became her husband,

singer-songwriter-guitarist Brian Gallagher. They met in 2012,

married the following year and are now parents to daughter Viola and

son Ronan.

With Gallagher part of the band, during concerts the two share an

easy banter along with the music-making, another perk for audiences.

Hilty performed her concerts throughout both pregnancies, recording

videos of each audience so the kids could eventually see where they’d

been and whom they’d encountered before they were born, and now

offers a sweet rendition of “The Rainbow Connection” in tribute to the

youngsters.

As for the future, Hilty has “tons” of concerts coming up, she says.

She’s finished filming a Christmas movie that will air on Lifetime and

has been voicing characters for several animated series, among them

a koala named K.C. on the Disney Junior show T.O.T.S. “They’re a

dream come true,” she says. “They’re so much fun, and I get to come

up with all these crazy voices.”

Well, Kermit the Frog introduced “The Rainbow Connection”.

Who knows—maybe we’ll hear a “Koala Connection” in Hilty’s shows!

Libby Slate is a Los Angeles-based arts and entertainment journalist,

whose other credits include Emmy, Performances, Live Design and

Where Los Angeles.

MEGAN HILTYSAMUELI THEATERDates: November 14–16Tickets: $89 and up

With special underwriting from:Steven and Hermia Brenneis

For tickets and information visit SCFTA.org or call (714) 556-2787 Group services: (714) 755-0236