Broadway and Bourne Legacy Star Donna Murphy on Playing a Role of a Lifetime

When she was just 3 years old Donna Murphy asked her mom for singing lessons. Although her mother couldn’t find them in the yellow pages, she did discover an accordion teacher. “They found a child-sized accordion and I went to an adult group class in a village hall and built up a little repertoire,” Murphy says. By the time she started kindergarten in Hauppauge, New York, she would place the accordion in a wagon, walk to school and serenade people as they entered. “Nobody asked me to do it. I just volunteered my services,” she recalls. Her repertoire was a total of two songs: “Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes” and “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.”

Two Tony Awards and many Broadway, film and TV shows later (Passion, The King and I, Wonderful Town, The Bourne Legacy, The Nanny Diaries,  Star Trek: Insurrection, Spider-Man 2, Mercy Street, Resurrection, Hindsight, Made in Jersey, What About Joan, to name a few), Murphy is still performing and loving it.

Currently, Murphy is wowing audiences as matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi in select performances of Hello, Dolly! on Broadway. (Murphy plays Dolly on Sundays and Mondays as Bette Midler plays her during other performances of the Tony Award-winning Best Musical Revival.) “I love that Dolly is so invested in wanting people to connect. We meet her on a day that she has made this decision where she wants to do for herself what she does for others,” says Murphy of Dolly ,who has been widowed 10 years. “She recognizes that she needs to allow herself to jump into the parade or become a part of the parade of life and really live to the fullest.”

Can you recall when you knew you could sing?
Miss Nancy Barber, my second-grade teacher taught us the song, “Have You Ever Been to the City Park” and asked each student to sing the song. I had probably already listened to Julie Andrews and Barbra Streisand at that point and was singing some combination of these voices I heard. My voice didn't sound like it was coming out of a child. I remember thinking, this is my moment. Miss Barber looked up and said “Who was that?” And I said, “It’s me, Donna.” She asked me to sing again. When we finished class she brought me to the principal’s office and asked me to sing the song. And she then contacted my parents and said, “She has a gift.”

Didn’t you make your Broadway debut when you were still a student at New York University?
I was a sophomore at NYU in the Undergraduate Drama Department. The program was great because I studied acting at Stella Adler conservatory. So I was at the conservatory and then took my academics at the university. I found out that I got cast in They’re Playing Our Song in my dorm room lobby. I didn't have my own phone and just got messages. The rule at Stella Adler was that we were not supposed to perform until our junior year.

But I was stage struck. I thought, are you kidding? I’m here, and there are actually auditions that I can show up for without an agent nor knowing anybody? Forget about getting the job. I wasn’t even thinking about that. It was just the joy of getting to audition and to sometimes stand on a Broadway stage. I would go to these open calls for the non-equity open auditions. So I got the job. They were looking for a second swing or understudy. The chorus was three female backup singers. They were alter egos, originally for Lucie Arnaz, then later on, Stockard Channing. So I got to be on stage with these wonderful performers. And that was my first job.

When you were first offered the role of the widow Dolly, it was just months after your husband Shawn passed away. [Murphy was with actor-singer Shawn Elliott for 36 years.] What gave you the courage to take on the role?
At first, I couldn't imagine myself being able to do what the actress playing Dolly needs to do on stage. I thought it was too soon. I was still grieving in my heart. But then I discovered the pleasure and gift far outweighed whatever challenges. Expressing Dolly’s joy, humor and survivor spirit was incredibly helpful to me. I can’t imagine any other reason that I would be jumping around, dancing and laughing after having lost Shawn.