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[0:00] April Ortiz: From Shakespeare to sports, from Fossey to Alvin Ailey, from Santam to Burelis, from McNally to Faye. It happened to the greats, it still happens every day. When lightning strikes, it's the moment you know. When lightning strikes, where your matter goes, you can stand in Chalureka, do whatever you like. You'll never forget the moment when lightning strikes.

[0:28] Jeryl Brunner: Hi, this is Jeryl Brunner, and you're listening to When Lightning Strikes, where we talk about the tingly mic drop moments that led you to becoming an artist.

[0:42] April Ortiz: April Ortiz is a prolific actress who has performed on Broadway, off Broadway, in film and TV. Currently she stars in the musical Empire at New World Stages. Just a few of April's other credits include In the Heights, Cats, Between Two Knees, Uncoupled, Fosse/Verdon, The Golden Girls, Elementary, Everybody Loves Raymond, Mad About You and on and on.

[1:19] Jeryl Brunner: Welcome, April.

[1:21] April Ortiz: Hello, Jeryl.

[1:22] Jeryl Brunner: So nice to see you, or rather to hear you.

[1:26] April Ortiz: It's wonderful.

[1:27] Jeryl Brunner: It's always a joy to see and hear you. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

[1:34] April Ortiz: My pleasure.

[1:35] Jeryl Brunner: So let's start with Empire. For people who might not know what Empire is about, this new musical about the people who built the Empire State Building.

[1:48] April Ortiz: Yes.

[1:48] Jeryl Brunner: Changed the world. What would you say it's about? What is Empire all about?

[1:54] April Ortiz: Well, it is about exactly that. It's about the history of the building of the Empire State Building, which took a mere 18 months, which is kind of astounding considering that the technology at that time in the early 1930s, and also the big stock market crash had just happened. They were able to build it without the kind of technology or safety measures that we would use now, or that even came up in the 70s when they were building skyscrapers in New York. They had the most innovative safety measures in place at that time, but it wasn't a lot. And so it was very scary for people to walk on those girders and be up there. There's that famous picture, which is not actually from the Empire State Building, it's from, I believe, the building of the Chrysler Building, where a bunch of guys are sitting in mid-air on a girder just relaxed and eating their lunch.

But what happened in the building of most of the buildings in Manhattan, which I was unaware of, is that they brought Mohawk people down from Canada, which is where the Mohawk tribe is from. It wasn't that they weren't afraid, but it was part of a rite of passage to face that fear. The people who talk about them do call them the Skywalkers. So I play a grandmother, a Mohawk grandmother in that storyline of the play. It's just interesting, and I really like the music. There's lots of earworms in it where I wake up singing other people's songs all the time. But the music is good. The people in it are just fantastic. Just really, really wonderful. It's a pleasure to be working with them, really.

[4:02] Jeryl Brunner: And it's fantastic to see you. You play several characters. It's such a many people live in there.

[4:12] April Ortiz: Including a jazz singer.

[4:14] Jeryl Brunner: Yes.

[4:15] April Ortiz: Some of these scattering away. I was there, you are.

[4:17] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah.

[4:18] April Ortiz: I'm thrilled to be doing all those different parts because Katie Huffman, the director, who I worked with, actually she's a Tony Award winner for The Producers. She knew me from my first big job and probably her first big job because I think she was 20 when we were in La Cage aux Folles together out in Los Angeles. We were in the Los Angeles company that sat at the Pantages for a year or two. I wasn't in it for that long, but she remembered me for some reason and called on me and offered me this role, which I don't honestly know how she knew I did all these things, but to do all these different accents and voices and to sing jazz and scat, which I never get to do in a musical, was fantastic. I'm really having a great time doing that, really.

[5:16] Jeryl Brunner: Because I think about the depth and breadth of you. I mean, I've seen you in In the Heights, you play Abuela, and Uncoupled, and there's so many layers.

[5:29] April Ortiz: Yeah, I've sort of built you.

[5:33] Jeryl Brunner: Many things.

[5:34] April Ortiz: I am many things. I have, you know, I wasn't one of those people who was just good when she started out. I had to learn a lot of things, you know. I had to learn to sing. I could sing, I could sing out loud, but it wasn't something you wanted to listen to. And so I trained a lot. I didn't go to college. I don't have an MFA or any of that stuff. I went to high school and then I started working out in California. When I came back here, when I came back to New York, it was so different for me because New York gets me, and Los Angeles does not. I did a lot of television work and some films out in Los Angeles, but they were always confused about like, what is she? Who, what does she do? And it seemed like I got sort of put in a little box because my last name is Ortiz.

I got put into a box where normally on television I would talk like this, or there was nothing for me. So I really am so thrilled that I came to New York because it scared me to death at first, but I'm really happy that I ended up here.

[6:55] Jeryl Brunner: Well, I'm happy too. Well, so let's go back to your lightning strikes moment. When you knew you had to be an artist, when you knew this was your calling.

[7:05] April Ortiz: You know, I was thinking about that, and I have to say really I have to go all the way back to grammar school when I got put at a separate desk from all the other children because otherwise I was doing a show for them. And so I would get in trouble all the time from just like trying to make them laugh. And it became apparent to me, although I didn't really get into it until I was in like my last year in junior high school. I started, I was in the play, and people laughed. I mean, it was a cheap laugh, I will say. I had a pillow that was belted onto me in the back and a pillow in the front. And so it was kind of a sight gag, but the laughter made me very happy.

[8:00] Jeryl Brunner: What was the play?

[8:01] April Ortiz: Oh, the play was My Sister Eileen, and so it was great fun. But when I got into high school, I wanted to go to summer school to get out of the house. But I also, you know what though? That's not true. Because I think the only reason I went to Hollywood High instead of Fairfax High in Los Angeles, because where I lived, you could go to either high school, and my sister had gone to Fairfax and my brother went to Fairfax. I went to Hollywood High because I had heard they had the best theater department. Our director was no joke. He was the boss and a director that prepared me to work with any other director, even Arthur Lawrence. And anybody who's worked with Arthur Lawrence knows what I'm talking about.

I mean, really, he was just, he put you into, you were just frightened. But he was great. He was also very loving and very sweet with all of us, and he took care of us and made sure we were okay. You know, if any of us came from, you know, bad families or whatever, that it was difficult. He was always there if you needed a place to stay or if you needed anything. His family, his wife was so kind to us, and he had four kids. I'm still friends with them. Because he's since passed. But when I got into high school, that's when I realized this is what I have to do. And that I was put here, you know, on earth, really. I think there's a moment in everyone's life, and you can either ignore it or you can embrace it.

But when the powers that be set you up to understand that you're here for something, and I know that I'm here to make people laugh, and that is what I do. And I like the other side of acting. I like dramatic acting as well, as many comics do. But to me, making people laugh and finding the bit that is funny that is true and funny in something, that to me is fabulous. And really singing, I like to sing, but since I have been singing this song in this show, singing "When to Say Woe," which is the speakeasy number, I have not enjoyed singing in a show more, really. I mean singing "Carnival," because I've done, I did a bit in In the Heights now. I've sort of aged into it, but I played Daniela on the first national tour, and that was a great song to sing.

But I really am so enjoying playing with our band, our orchestra, which is a fabulous, fabulous band. I mean, we have some great, great musicians. The trumpet player, you know, he plays with me, and I play back with him, and they let me do so much. They let me do, they let me scat and they let me improvise. And one night I forgot all the words and just scatted the whole song. Uh-oh, but I did. But there were people there. I wasn't gonna leave the stage. So yeah, it's been a really wonderful journey, and I've had a good time with it.

[11:32] Jeryl Brunner: You know, it's worth the price of admission alone just to see that number.

[11:36] April Ortiz: You win that number.

[11:37] Jeryl Brunner: It's really delicious.

[11:39] April Ortiz: So sweet, thank you.

[11:40] Jeryl Brunner: Do you remember going back to when you were making kids laugh and they had to separate you, what kind of things you would do?

[11:47] April Ortiz: I would do it. It started at home because I could get my mother not to be mad at me if I could make her laugh. So if I did something that I was gonna get in trouble for, you know, I was, you know, given the big was I was gonna give you a little, give you the jokes or whatever. And I found that I was able to sort of ferret out, if that's the right word, what my mother thought was funny. And that is weirdly, I have this strange talent for knowing what certain people will think is funny. Like if I go to a party and I'm in one group and then I go and walk over and talk to another group, I know what that group will think is funny. If I can just, I can gauge it what certain people will think is funny.

So when I was at school, you know, you're with a bunch of kids that are your contemporaries, so you know what they think is funny, and I would do anything to make them laugh. One teacher called my mother and said, "I just, you know, they want to pay more attention to April than to me." And I need their attention. And I thought, so I got put in a little corner and in my own little table because then I couldn't like fraternize while we were in class. But once we got out of class, I was, you know, back to telling the jokes.

[13:14] April Ortiz: Yeah, just playing with them. Because I like to make people happy. I do. I like to make people happy. So that was my aha moment. And I kind of knew, even though every once in a while, like I think I said in my grammar school graduation when they said they asked us what we wanted to be, and I said a journalist, probably to please my mother because she was a journalist. But I knew better. I didn't want to be a journalist. I just don't. I procrastinate when I write. So, but this is, I mean, this is just, it's what I do, and I do love all of the different things that I do, and I love voiceover. I love to do cartoons and animation voices. But I have to say, I had thought before I came in to do the show, I hadn't done theater in a minute since you saw me in that play.

I'd done a lot of readings. But there's a lot of readings being done. And people asked me to do them and I'll do them. And it's fun to do the readings. But I thought, if this is all it's gonna be, maybe I just don't want to do theater anymore. When she offered me this role, I thought, all right, I'll do one, I'll do one more play. And in rehearsal, it was hard because I had a little knee injury, so the rehearsal process was a little difficult for me. And but we were doing the rehearsal process and getting all the changes and everything.

[14:46] April Ortiz: And then rehearsal stopped and we went into tech rehearsal. And we did a very long tech rehearsal, longer than I've ever done in any show. And so we went into the New World Stages, and the minute I walked out for the first minute of tech, when the light hit me, I was like, oh, I'm home. So I think I was just, you know, trying to convince myself that maybe because it's not the most lucrative part of show business, um, that I was gonna, you know, skate away from live performance. But there is nothing like when that light hits you. The camera is like, meh, the camera's okay. It's like, all right, I see you're there. But the stage lights, the stage lights love me. And I just know it. I it's a the weirdest, I just know it. I feel like I'm just electrified when the stage lights hit me. And I've and so I guess I don't get to quit.

[15:49] Jeryl Brunner: Please don't quit.

[15:51] April Ortiz: Please don't quit. So what was one of the first professional gigs you had?

[15:56] April Ortiz: The first professional, oh my gosh. Okay. I did a dinner theater production. Oh, wait, but do I have to get you back to the um this that happened? I was gonna be an actress. That's all I wanted to do. I got out of high school. I immediately went to the Mark Taper and auditioned at their open call. I started auditioning around town. I tried to get agents. And then a couple of girlfriends of mine, who I still know today, two sisters that I went to high school with, they got tickets to Chorus Line that was gonna be at the Pantages. There was a tour at the time. It was probably I was 19. And I sat in the orchestra, probably like fifth row center, and I was just enthralled. And when Cassie did her dance, well, you know, I went out and cut my hair like that.

I was gonna be Cassie. I went to there was a uh paper that you could get auditions from called the Dramalog in Los Angeles at the time. And there was an open call for Chorus Line. So of course, without any dance training whatsoever, I took one class the night before. Well, two. I tap class, beginning tap and beginning jazz, and I thought that'll do it. And I ran up to the Pantages. I was numbered something like 456 and waited with the non-equity people because I w I didn't have an equity card. And I got up there in this group of 20 and did, you know, I couldn't do it. I got cut. And at the end of the, but I walked out of there thinking, you know, if I had just been able to do that double ballet pirouette, he would have cast me as Cassie.

[17:52] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah, at your 19-year-old self, he would have cast you as Cassie with your brand new character shoes that don't have rubber and aren't braced.

[17:59] April Ortiz: I was ready to just, I'm I'm doing I'm gonna be casting. So I but because I could I'm a kind of person that you don't really, if you say no to me, I auditioned for In the Heights five times. They said no, I was like, yeah, but I got to the last callback, so they must like something. So I just keep kept going back. And I because I won't give up. If I want to do something, I won't give up. And the show I met Katie and I auditioned for that three times. I will not give up. If I want to do something, I won't give up. So he said no to me. I thought that just means he wants me to learn to dance. So I told these friends of mine that I was gonna be a dancer now after this audition. For my birthday, they gave me four classes at Dupre Dance Academy, which is where I ended up teaching later on.

Um, and they were four dollars a class. Yeah, that's how long ago this was. And I just kept at it. And I, I mean, sore, just take, I would take five classes a day, and I couldn't barely walk. But I kept it up, and my goal was to do a really hard dance show. And I knew that by the time I was done, once I was started to learn to dance, I realized, oh, well, by the time I'm done with this, Chorus Line isn't necessarily gonna be on Broadway or in a tour. So the show that I ended up in was Cats. Lacage first and then Cats. But the first show that I did was Cabaret at the Grand Dinner Theater in Anaheim, across the street from Disneyland, they paid us $125 a week. And I was non-equity. And we uh we had to drive.

If you lived in Los Angeles, where I lived in Hollywood, you had to drive down at rush hour. It took three hours, three to four hours to get to the theater. And I was thrilled to do it until, of course, they didn't clear the stage well enough, and I slipped on the a jus. Yes, that's what I literally slipped, you know, they were serving prime rib, and I came out till mama, and I slipped on the a jus from the prime rib. So that was my illustrious, you know, introduction to show business. But I I got to understudy Sally Bowles and go on a couple of nights for her. And that I mean, that part to me, I realized that I'm too tall for that part because I've read everything Christopher Isherwood has ever written about that character.

But I just love that role. I love that play so much. Um, I saw this most recent production with Eddie Redmayne. I love this play. I think it's a great play. And that was the first, that was my first professional job.

[21:02] Jeryl Brunner: How long after the uh Chorus Line audition was that job?

[21:07] April Ortiz: Well, interestingly enough, at that Chorus Line audition, T. Michael Reed, who was Michael Bennett's assistant, and who was setting all the shows around, he was he uh he called me out of the line and I thought, see, Cassie. So he called me out of this line of 20 girls and guys, and he said, Um, how long have you been taking uh ballet? And I said, Oh, a couple of years. And he said, Oh, and how many uh years have you you taken tap? I mean, if you could have seen me tap, it was I it was like I I don't even Do you remember those little marionette puppets that you could like if you moved them up and down their arms would go crazy and their legs would go crazy? That was me tapping. Kind of still it was and he said, And how long have you been taking tap?

And I was like, a couple of years. He goes, Okay, will you do the um pirouette for us again? And he made me do it again. Mind you, now that I know what it is, I can tell you that they had asked for an outside ballet pirouette. I was doing inside jazz bouettes and landing on like practically on my face. And so he put me back in the line, and that that that rather than what it was, which was he was making fun of me, I was, I thought, Cassie. So I went home, you know, learned to dance. Yes, and I love it. Five years later.

[22:38] April Ortiz: So it's five years. Five, well, five years later, that the don't tell the the Grand Dinner Theater was was about th three and a half, four years later. But five years later, I auditioned for Cats. Unbeknownst to me, I was auditioning for T. Michael Reed, the same man. And when they asked, uh, then he still did that, and they asked us to do a double pirouette. I did a double pirouette, landed perfectly, did another double pirouette, landed perfectly. And I got put on hold, and then I moved to New York and they cast me and sent me back to the LA company. And but when they hired me in New York, they said, T. Michael Reed is gonna meet by then I knew who T. Michael Reed was and what had happened.

I met him at the stage door. They said, You're gonna meet him at the stage door, and that he's gonna walk you up and they're gonna put an extra chair. So they put a chair in the balcony for me to watch the show before I was sent back to Los Angeles, because it was five days from the time I got hired to the time they sent me back home. And I told him the story, and he got very embarrassed. And he turned kind of red. And he said, Yes, but look what it did. Now you're a dancer. You're gonna be in Cats. So beautiful story.

[23:54] Jeryl Brunner: Is there a role that you're aching to play? Something that you know you die who you're dying to take on, or is it yet to be written?

[24:03] April Ortiz: You know, maybe it's yet to be written, although I think I'm sure they cast it younger than me, even though they shouldn't. Um, but uh I think Sunset Boulevard would be a fantastic role to play. I read Swanson's book, Swanson on Swanson when I was younger, and I just I think she's magnificent. And um, so I I would love to do Sunset Boulevard, I think, which I have actually never seen, but because I know the story and I've seen the movie. Uh huh. Um that's something that I would like to do. Um, unless there's a jazz musical that somebody wants to write. Oh, okay, yes, I do know. Oh, I would love to have to. I mean, I doubt whether they would cast somebody my age, but oh my goodness, I would love to do Sophisticated Ladies. Because I grew up with Duke Ellington and and my mother worked for him and we were friends, and so that that would be fantastic. That would be full circle for me. I I would love that.

[25:04] Jeryl Brunner: And is there something that you wish you could tell that kid who was just starting out, who was auditioning for Chorus Line, who is saying, this is what I want to do, knowing what you know now?

[25:18] April Ortiz: You know, I sort of had this in my mind anyway, but I think I would tell any other kid now, and I would tell that that kid with wisdom. I would say when they say no, just push them aside. It matters not. It doesn't matter. Go on to the next one and go on to the next one. Because no one can tell if you uh when we would um speak at high schools when we were on tour, I would tell the kids, if you like to do this, do it, have fun, do some community theater, you know, do it in high school and college, whatever you want to do, do that. Don't pick it as as something to do for a living. If you love it, again, do it when you can, and that's great. If there is nothing else that you can do that you can imagine ever in your life doing and making you happy, then you do this.

And when people say no, push them aside and say, Yeah, okay, well, not you, bye bye, and keep going. Because if this is what you have to do, you know, you're a lifer. I had a friend from high school. I went to school with Frank Darabont, a brilliant director and writer. And he said to me one day, he was talking about another girl from our high school years who had quit being a performer and said, Oh, you know, she's gonna come work for me in production, and you know, it's just ridiculous. It's just and he described my life and in a very, you know, negative way. And I came around the corner of where because he was talking in another room, and I came around the corner and I said, You know, you just described my life, right?

And he goes, Well, I I don't understand it. He says, What I do is so different. He said, But if but I choose you, I choose actors, and I have an idea when I start a project, exactly what the person's supposed to look like and sound like. He said, You're you how are you basing your living on that? On a just a crapshoot like that. And I said, if you're a lifer, you're a lifer. That's what you do. This is what I do. I know I'm not right for everything. I don't get mad at other actresses when they get a part over me because it's not my part. If it's your part, it's your part. And that's another thing I would tell young me. If it's yours, you will get it. If it's not, move on. It isn't yours. You weren't the right height or whatever, whatever.

Move on. And next time, try out again. And maybe it's a different company. You know, I was too tall for the second uh time I auditioned for Lacage. I was too tall. I was five nine. And the cast, I was looking down the line. I was at the very last one, I was the last person to be cut. I was looking down the line, and everyone was about five seven. And I jutted my hip out and tried to crouch down and be smaller and do anything to just get shorter. But the fact is, sometimes you're too tall, too short, too fat, too thin, whatever, whatever, whatever. You know, so you go in there and you do your best, and like Bryan Cranston says many times, you serve the text, you serve the work, and that is all you can do. And then you walk away and don't think about it again until they call you.

[28:46] Jeryl Brunner: Such beautiful advice. April, it is such a gift to have you on the show.

[28:51] April Ortiz: Thank you.

[28:52] Jeryl Brunner: Such so nice. And so thank you for coming to see the show and being such a wonderful fan and person.

[28:54] April Ortiz: Thank you.

[29:00] Jeryl Brunner: Have a great day.

[29:01] April Ortiz: Thank you. You too.

[29:03] Jeryl Brunner: Great. This still happens every day. When lightning strikes is the moment you know. The theme song was written by Tom McGovern. This episode was edited by Sarah Goodman and produced by Anna Strauss. Lightning strikes.