Five Questions: Kim Crosby

Former Broadway actress and Ozarks-native Kim Crosby will star as Mary Poppins in the production of the Disney classic at Springfield Little Theatre Sept. 12–Oct. 5. Although she’s resided in Springfield since 2005, Crosby needed to get special permission from her actor’s union to play the lead role in the locally produced Broadway musical. A veteran in national and regional touring shows, Crosby got her start in local theater at the age of 5 before moving to New York when she turned 21. Married to Robert Westenberg, the artistic director for Drury University’s theater program, she has acted in three Broadway musicals, spent four years touring in “Peter Pan” and played the original Cinderella in the hit musical “Into the Woods.”

Supercalifragilistic
“[Producer] Beth Domann quite simply called me and asked. They were in the process of auditioning the local cast, and we have a fabulous cast. I’m always impressed when I see a production at Little Theatre at the depth of talent we have in the community. … She called to ask if I would do it, and being a member of Actors Equity Association, which is the professional actors’ union, I can’t do local theater or nonprofessional theater without a special arrangement. … This kind of thing has been done before several years ago when I did ‘Into the Woods’ as the baker’s wife. That’s a role I revisited because I originated the part of Cinderella for the original Broadway company. … In fact, my husband, Robert Westenberg, played the prince and the wolf in that original production. That’s how we met.”

Into the Movies
“We’ve been invited to participate in a reunion gathering in November in anticipation of the release of the feature film [‘Into the Woods’], which is coming out around Christmas. They are showing promos of it in theaters these days. … We’re going out to Orange County. Stephen Sondheim, the composer, and James Lapine will be part of this reunion panel. It’ll just be a roundtable and we’ll be singing some songs from the show. … I had been in a production of ‘A Little Night Music’ – which is another one of my favorite Sondheim shows – at the Berkshire Theater Festival in Massachusetts. The casting director, who had worked with Steven Sondheim on a number of shows, had caught this production and contacted my agent to come in and audition for the role of Cinderella. Five callbacks later, I was lucky enough to be cast in the part.”

Young Theater
“I grew up doing shows at Little Theatre. So, I am really back home. We have some young kids in the cast – the two children of the Banks family, Jane and Michael. They’re the same age I was when I began – of course, it was a generation ago that I was doing what they are doing. It’s been like a second home, basically. I was 5 when I did my first Little Theatre show. I was one of the children in ‘The King and I.’ My older brother and sister were also in it. They didn’t latch onto it, but I loved it from the beginning. My father, Don Crosby, even though he was a dentist by profession, had us in every musical that he possibly could there. We did many shows, and it did truly nurture my love of theater.”

Big Breaks
“I moved to New York when I was 21. I went off to college and then I took a year off to tour with Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians. He ran summer music workshops for high schoolers. … That was my first professional job. Then, I went back to school. Then, I toured for another year. Then, I went to Manhattan School of Music. … After two years there, I was able to acquire my Equity card. That allowed me to audition for professional productions. I got my first equity job when I was 23. Every job led to something a little bit better or a different connection. And one connection led to an agent. Once you have an agent, that’s great because then you don’t have to go out on these cattle calls where there are hundreds of people trying out.”

Beyond the Curtain
“I got my first Broadway show when I was 25. My first show was ‘Jerry’s Girls.’ … Besides theater, I did a lot of commercial work – not one of those iconic commercials that you would remember. I have sold a lot of products, though. [laughs] The one I made the most money on was for Preparation H. So, I suffered a lot of things. I had an Arrid Extra Dry commercial that ran and ran. … I was never a contract player [on a soap opera]. I did come on. They’d call those ‘under fives’ because we’d have under five lines. Or they call us ‘day players.’ … The third of my three Broadway shows was in ‘Guys and Dolls.’ I played Sarah Brown. For much of the past five years, I have been involved with a production of ‘Peter Pan’ that starred Cathy Rigby. We were down in Branson at The Mansion [Theatre]. We were there for two summers. Then, I went on a national tour, which I was on for two years. … My husband, he was a bona fide Broadway star. He worked in eight different Broadway shows.”[[In-content Ad]]