Megan Hilty chats with NJ.com about Valentine's shows
Megan Hilty chats with NJ.com ahead of this weekend's pops performances:
Valentine's Day is supposed to be spent with someone you love so much you would fight for them. Well, this year, for Megan Hilty, that someone is the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.
The singer/actress, well known for her turns on Broadway, as well as on the Broadway-themed NBC show "Smash," agreed to a perform this weekend's Pops Series with the NJSO well over a year ago. After the ink was dry on the contracts, Hilty was approached by Broadway producers about starring in a revival of the crowd-pleasing farce, "Noises Off," which runs through March 13that the American Airlines Theater.
"It was a little tricky to negotiate," Hilty explained in an interview last week. "It was a deal breaker. I told the producers, either you give me the weekend off to do these concerts or I wasn't going to be able to do the play."
Clearly she was persuasive. She got the role of Brooke Ashton in "Noises Off" and is one of the standouts in the cast — bringing a thoughtful new interpretation of the ditzy blonde actress. She also has earned excellent reviews. And she got the producers permission — so this weekend, her understudy will take over Friday Night, Saturday Night and Sunday afternoon, as Hilty sings in Red Bank, Newark and New Brunswick.
The 34-year old performer says she's been looking forward to singing with the NJSO for sometime.
"Once I say that I'm doing something, I'm going to do it," she says. "It's always a highlight of my career to sing with amazing symphony orchestras... it's so incredible to hear so many different instruments playing these songs. It's easy for me to get lost in the music."
The program will consist of songs from "Smash" and "Wicked" ("I spent four and a half years of my life in the show, so its kind of hard not to do something from 'Wicked'...plus 'Popular' is really exciting to hear with a symphony orchestra," she says). It will also feature one othertype of number: "Because this is on Valentine's Day weekend, I thought it was pretty obvious: Love Songs!"
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Some of the songs Hilty will sing include "Tenderly" and "April in Paris." "All of the songs, really, I start with thinking about what I want to hear the symphony orchestra play," she then adds, "because this is just as much fun for me as it is for everybody else in the audience.