NEW YORK --
Whereas many individuals spent Valentine’s Day with the normal flowers and sweets, Brittney Johnson was making theater historical past.
The younger Broadway veteran was gently lowered onto the Gershwin Theatre stage to change into the primary Black actor to imagine the position of Glinda full-time in “Depraved,” shattering a racial barrier on the day of affection.
“Probably the most rewarding elements of that is that it’s not only for me. I feel it’s the least quantity about me,” she says. “It’s about what it means for different individuals, for those who are going to see me do it or for those who simply know that I’m right here.”
Johnson is a part of a sisterhood of girls who've lately damaged boundaries on American phases, together with Emilie Kouatchou, who turned the primary Black lady to play Christine in “The Phantom of the Opera” on Broadway, and Morgan Bullock who has change into Riverdance’s first Black feminine dancer.
“I do see issues shifting, and I'm very optimistic concerning the future,” Johnson says. “As a result of particular conversations are beginning to occur now, individuals’s eyes are being opened in ways in which they by no means had been earlier than, both as a result of they by no means wanted to be, or as a result of they simply didn’t know what they didn’t know.”
“Depraved,” primarily based on Gregory Maguire’s cult novel, tells the story of two younger witches-to-be, one a inexperienced brooder who would be the Depraved Witch of the West and the opposite blond and bubbly, who might be Glinda the Good Witch.
Johnson has ended a 19-year run of white actors enjoying Glinda in any skilled “Depraved” firm, a milestone made much more highly effective since Glinda is the very essence of goodliness.
“I feel it’s one thing that, particularly for little Black children that come and really feel the power that’s being given to Glenda — someone that appears like them — it won't be one thing that they expertise from the world of their actual life,” she says. “Seeing somebody that appears such as you being beloved is so essential to see.”
On the night time the position was lastly hers, Johnson’s life flashed in entrance of her — actually. As is the present’s pleasant customized, the earlier actor enjoying Glinda organized for a notice of encouragement and love — normally filled with photographs of the brand new star — to be pinned to the within curtain on her first night time. Every new Glinda sees it as she makes her entrance.
“It was the primary time that it was me. Often I’m seeing different individuals’s photos and inspiring phrases, and it was the primary time that notice was left for me,” she says. “It’s actually transferring to have it's for you.”
Lindsay Pearce, her co-star as Elphaba, says Johnson is somebody “clearly born for this” and says she’s by no means seen anybody work more durable. She describes Johnson as gracious, enjoyable and goofy.
Pearce was backstage watching on a monitor when Johnson on Valentine’s Day started singing the musical’s hit “Standard” when she noticed just a little Black lady within the entrance row along with her household, clapping her palms in glee.
“That’s why it’s essential as a result of theater belongs to everybody. It’s not one thing that solely belongs to somebody who seems to be a sure manner, sounds a sure manner,” she says. “Theater’s imagined to be the mirror of what the world seems to be like, and that’s what the world seems to be like.”
Johnson’s different Broadway credit embody “Les Misérables,” “Motown the Musical,” “Lovely: The Carole King Musical” and reverse Glenn Shut in “Sundown Boulevard” and as a visitor in Kristin Chenoweth’s Broadway live performance present, teaming up with the unique Glinda. She has been linked to “Depraved” since 2018, transferring up from ensemble to Glinda understudy, to Glinda standby. She was onstage as Glinda when the pandemic shut down theater in 2020, however solely quickly.
Johnson noticed out her contract and had moved to Los Angeles in the course of the lull to pursue TV and movie tasks when “Depraved” lured her again to Oz with the promise of Glinda full time.
“It did really feel like unfinished enterprise,” she says. “I undoubtedly felt like I had extra to do on this present specifically. So getting that decision actually felt like the reply to internally what I assumed I wanted.”
Johnson grew up in Maryland near Washington. Her mother stated she was singing earlier than she was speaking. “She stated that I used to be a drama queen from after I was a baby,” Johnson says, then laughing provides: “I don’t agree.”
She was bitten by the musical theater bug in highschool. Performances in “Les Misérables” in tenth grade and “Sunday within the Park with George” in her senior 12 months satisfied her that musical theater was what she wished to do.
“I used to be raised to imagine and to know that I might do something,” she says. “I'm not a stranger to being the primary of something or the one Black particular person in a room or in a scenario.”
What about being the primary Black Glinda? Was it on her horizon? “It wasn’t out of my realm of prospects for me that I could possibly be if the world allowed it,” she solutions. “However after 5, 10 years of not seeing any motion in that route, I feel you do begin to put apart that particular dream.”
Stepping out on Valentine’s Day was a full-circle second since Johnson had seen “Depraved” at age 15 along with her mother, catching it on the Kennedy Middle on tour: “I simply actually loved it. I simply beloved the story. I beloved the music.”
Now, the position of Glinda is hers and she will’t wait to make it her personal, giving the nice witch her personal spin. She says there’s plenty of flexibility in “Depraved” for actors so as to add their character.
“They actually encourage us within the rehearsal course of to form of play and discover how the character matches on you. It’s not a stencil that you need to match into,” she says. “There are issues that I do uncover every single day about her or about concerning the position. There are issues you may solely actually discover when you've the chance to do it greater than as soon as.”