MIDLAND For Lubbock native Madeline Powell, getting to perform close to where she grew up is exciting, even if it’s still a two-hour drive to her hometown.
“Close enough,” she said while laughing during a phone interview this week.
Powell will be performing on the stage as the lead role of Eliza Doolittle in the iconic Broadway musical “My Fair Lady” next week at the Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center.
The show is the second musical in this season’s Broadway in the Basin and will start at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 15.
Tickets can be purchased online at tinyurl.com/hfdfayyd.
Powell, who graduated from Oklahoma City University in 2021, is making her national tour debut with “My Fair Lady” which began back in October with over 100 shows performed across the country.
“I’m very excited,” Powell said. “We spent some time in Dallas earlier in our tour but now I’m more excited to be closer to home. I’m really looking forward to seeing people from my childhood that I grew up with that I know are making the trip.”
It’s a close enough drive for her family and friends to come down and see her perform and she’s looking forward to having a cheering section.
“I’m expecting a lot of people to be there for that one night which I’m looking forward to,” Powell said. “It’s always special when someone in the cast has a big group in the audience. That definitely does something to the energy.”
From Lincoln Center Theater, which also did “The King and I” and “South Pacific,” comes a new production of “My Fair Lady.”
The musical, which boasts such classics like “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “The Rain in Spain,” “Wouldn’t it Be Loverly” and “On the Street Where You Live,” tells the story of Eliza Doolittle, a young cockney flower seller and Henry Higgins, a linguistics professor who is determined to transform her into his version of a “proper lady.”
Over the years, the musical has become a fan-favorite and seen many revivals as well with a movie in 1964 which starred Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison.
The musical, written by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, was inspired by George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” the wickedly insightful play from 1913.
Shaw made the claim that his work about a professor who transforms a cockney flower girl into a lady was essentially about phonetics.
For Lerner, “My Fair Lady” was squarely about the relationship between Higgins and Doolittle but Shaw’s perspective infuses much of the musical.
Directed by Bartlett Sher, this production of “My Fair Lady” focuses the story more on Eliza than Higgins.
Therefore, a lot of work was done to re-center the piece around the person who, in plot terms, the audience really follows which is Eliza. That work included set designs and repositioning the show behind Eliza as the story opens on her and follows her throughout.
Powell talked about the changes in this production from previous versions.
“Sher really made it his mission to restore the musical ‘My Fair Lady’ to its original intent of the play ‘Pygmalion’ that it’s based on. With Lerner and Loewe, there’s a fascinating history of the transformation of the Pygmalion script to the stage to the screen and then from Pygmalion, how that evolved into ‘My Fair Lady.’
“But George Bernard Shaw was a raging feminist. He did not subscribe to the idea of marriage, socially. He felt that independence was the most important part of being human. He was very ahead of his time, socially. He wrote Eliza very specifically to not be a character that was weak or taken advantage of. She was written to be very strong and to know what she wants. The biggest difference was that there was never intended to be a romance between Henry and Eliza.”
The reason a lot of people might remember it that way is because of how the 1964 movie version ended in which Eliza and Higgins end up together.
“But the ending of that movie was not an approved ending of the original playwright and they changed the script,” Powell said.
Powell says this revival is more faithful to the original text of “Pygmalion.”
“With this revival, it was really important for Bart to revisit the original text of ‘Pygmalion’ and incredibly, the text between ‘My Fair Lady’ and ‘Pygmalion’ are almost identical,” Powell said. “They mostly just added the songs into the play but it was very important for Bart to honor Shaw’s original intent with Eliza’s characterization. She’s abused in this story and we see her reclaim her power and we see her navigate herself and take the tools that she’s learned to save herself which is a really important message and something I’m proud to be doing every night.”
Auditioning for the role was different than most auditions.
Due to strict COVID protocols in the entertainment industry, Powell’s first audition was done through a recording of herself performing “I Could’ve Danced All Night” from her place.
“Post-pandemic, our industry changed a lot during that time as so many people’s lives did,” Powell said. “Since singing and performing live wasn’t safe, we had resorted to self-taping a lot. So when I auditioned for this role, it was still very much in the thick of self taping for COVID reasons and rather than auditioning in a room filled with people, I just videoed myself in my kitchen.”
Soon after, she was called back for a second audition before getting the part.
“I then got the privilege of getting to go into a room full of people and sing live for them,” Powell said. “That night, I got a call back from my director saying that he was going to offer me the part. That felt like it was literally out of a movie, to have my phone ring and have my moment of realization that I will not ever forget. It was a short process for me which is not always the case. But it was very quick and surprising.”
She says there’s plenty of parts from the musical to choose from that are her favorite. One that stands out, however, is the opening.
“I love it because ‘Loverly’ is an iconic song but it’s one of the songs where I get to interact with the ensemble before we see Eliza move into Henry’s house and begin her transformation,” Powell said. “I personally love that part of the show because I’m just getting to see all my friends before settling our tracks for the night and they disappear for three hours. That part is always such a joy and it’s a wonderful way to start the show. I’m always looking forward to the ‘Rain in Spain,’ that’s a number that really excites the audience and we have a ton of fun with getting to that breakthrough point for Eliza in the show.”
When she’s not on the road touring, Powell is in New York City where she currently resides.
She visits Lubbock whenever she gets the opportunity.
“I was just visiting this past summer,” Powell said. “I made sure to make a trip back home right before the tour started because I knew I wasn’t going to have a lot of time off. So I went home and gave everybody hugs. Another reason why I’m excited to be in Odessa is to be near my family and friends and for them to see what I’ve been doing.”
Going from college grad to playing Eliza Doolittle on national tour in just the last two years has been a fun journey for Powell but she says she’s also learned a lot along the way.
“I have taken a dive from the deep end with leading a national tour and doing a piece that’s directed by Bart just because he’s so intellectual and his pieces are so layered,” Powell said. “There’s a lot of intentionality that they require so I’m shocked to be trusted with the task but so honored and I’ve learned so much in the last 100 shows about myself as an artist and myself as a person. There’s been a learning curve, for sure, but it’s been the greatest gift to jump in to something that’s so delicious and well-done.”
If you go
- What: “My Fair Lady.”
- When: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 15.
- Where: Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center.
- Where to purchase tickets: tinyurl.com/hfdfayyd
