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Video: How Bonnie Milligan Built a Better Debra
May 17, 2024
The Booth Theatre isn't big enough to hold the applause every night for the fan favorite character of Kimberly Akimbo. That has everything to do with Tony nominee Bonnie Milligan. In this video, Bonnie chats more about how she brought Debra to life on Broadway.
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World
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Bonnie Milligan brings down the house eight times a week as Deborah in the new musical Kimberly
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Akimbo, and I caught up with her here at the Museum of Broadway
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First of all, I am so excited to be sitting with you here at the Museum of Broadway. I know
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I've not been in yet. I'm so excited to be here. Well, you're going to go through the museum whenever you want
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Oh, for sure, for sure. Look at you. You know, thank you. Is this your all-out princess look
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We're giving a full Disney princess moment. I love this. I mean, it was just a moment
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I wanted to give you a moment. Well, like I said, you know I love you. Yes, and I love you
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Well, I've been with you. I think I've watched everything you have done in New York. Yeah, I think you have too
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I have. But let's just talk about this. Kimberly Akimbo. I mean, what has made this so special for you
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Well, I think the people. Yeah. It is the most incredible. book and score that I've, you know, I've probably ever dealt with. David Lindsay Bear and
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Janine Tesori, it's a gift of a role of a book. And the cast is absolutely incredible. Beyond their
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talent, them as human beings, just there's a lot of kindness in that building. And everybody that
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works at the booth behind the scenes is just a great group of people. So it's been so, so special
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from like top to bottom. I just, it's been a really unique, incredible gift
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Okay. David and Janine together are like the wildest brother and sister, right
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Yes, yes. I mean, like fun crazy time, right? Yeah, yeah. I told them they should do like a comedy duo act on the road
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They're so funny together. They're incredible and they're such beautiful collaborators. And because they're such geniuses in their own right, let alone what they bring
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together and then they're still collaborative to what you want to bring as an actor. It's incredible
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Okay, the role of Deborah. Yes. I mean, what a gift to be handed to you. Yeah. Yeah
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I mean, she's not you at all. So it's like, talk about what she's like and what you love about her
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And like when you read her, you were like, oh my gosh. I mean, what's fun about her is like her
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fearlessness, her fight, her grit. Like she is in a place where we meet her. And
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the show is stakes are high since stuff has gone down and she needs things
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So she needs a scam to go down. She needs Kimberly to help her so that she has a little safety net because it's like
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again, really high stakes. She says at one point, I'm on parole
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I could go back. It's too scary. So it's fun to find this very flawed human and to find the humanity within there and not
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just play. I mean, I have some of the best comedy in there. there, you know, like Cuzical Comedy, ridiculous circumstances that are really fun to do
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that could be very broad. But what's in that script and what has been fun to dig out and really sink my teeth into
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is to find that humanity, to find the lie of what she's doing, and to ground it and a real
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love of Kimberly, her niece. And the conflict of a sincere love and hope to help this girl, but that the need, the
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need to help myself is greater. And that's a big conflict. And that's a great thing to play
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As an actor, that's so fun to sink into, to say, I could choose her over me
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I can't. I got to choose me. And finding those areas where, where do they do this and where do they meet
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And it's such an intricately written script and score. And, you know, it was a play before
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But I think my take on Deborah has been to dive into that love a little bit more
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than had been previously in the play. And David and Janine were so on board with my desire to do that that songs started sounding different because of how I approached Deborah differently
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Janine wrote the songs for me and wanted to collaborate with me in those ways to incorporate
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the slyness that I was giving. That it's been incredible to get to really form this take on this character with these incredible
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authors. See, I just got goosebumps when you said that. They wrote songs for me. Everybody dreams
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of being an original cast of having a role created for them, especially something like this
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Yeah, yeah. You know, that must be like the greatest gift, but all of a sudden they hand you a song
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because you, all right, so I have to ask you this. Yeah. How does it feel to bring down the house
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eight times a week with your song better where people just stop and stand on their feet
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It's amazing. I mean, it's, it's amazing. I mean, it's. It's really incredible
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What's funny is, you know, so much of the song, it's Deborah's life philosophy
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So it's very active because I'm also really trying to get Kimi on my side. The kids get roped into it, and that's exciting and fun
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And you watch Debra weave a spell. And you learn so much about this character right away
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And I just recently read an article where Janine Tesori and David Lindsay Baer
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were breaking down the script in every song. And she'd said one of her favorite memories was
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the Atlantic Theater basement working on better with me because it wasn't quite right
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and she said the words to me, can I build on you? Can I write on you? And I was like, uh-huh. And she's like, okay
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can you try this? Okay, can you try this? And I had been doing something really
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quiet and she thought, it was the word hey, that section where I go, hey, hey, hey, like the big run
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And I said, well, it says a cadenza and that to me says light. In the music, I
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read that as that would be light. And Also, it would be a tactic change
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If she's not listening to me that I'm like, okay, maybe I'm going too hard. And she went, oh, I said, I can read
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I can do it loud and big if you want, but I have to re-approach where I am
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She's like, no, no, no, no, no. This makes so much sense. And I said, what if we meet in the middle
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And the first, hey, is a shout. And then I realized I've gone too far
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And the condenza can be quieter. Like, let's bring it back. And she's like, I love that
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And so it really became a collaboration in the room of, like, how it's
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would sound and with the intention of the actor. And so, and she was like, it's not going where we wanted to go
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Let's build it right and take time. And it was her and our music director, Chris Fenwick, at the piano and me, just the three of us
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in the basement of the Atlantic while they were rehearsing. We were in tech, I think, upstairs
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And we just worked on a song. I just remember thinking, oh my gosh, I messaged a friend that night
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Janine Tesori said the words to me. can I write on you? And this was one of the greatest days of my life
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And the fact that she brought that up. And in an interview years later
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that that's one of her favorite memories, was so moving to me because it meant the world to me
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that she had the trust in me to be so open to what I wanted to bring to this character
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that wasn't David Lindsay Bear has described it in the past as a steamroller
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And that I wanted to do, as they have described, a pickpocket
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And so to be a little bit more different, because when you take things into a musical and they've added these teen, the teens to it, you have to go from a scene where I say something and they go, ew, and run to the next scene, they start singing back up
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So you can't just be loud and ridiculous. You have to be enticing in a way
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So it's all there. I just got to get all the clues and figure it out how I wanted to interpret it
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and they were so on board and we really collaborated together. I've goosebumps again
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No, but it's what you dream of. Yeah, it really is. It really is
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I moved to the city, and one of my favorite musicals was Thurley Modern Millie
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I a huge Julie Andrews fan Me too And I loved the movie And I remember reading a People magazine article about Hunter and Sutton Foster They were brother and sister
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They'd lived in Michigan and they were both on Broadway. And I came on a trip with my mom as a teenager
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And we went to the TKTS booth. Well, we bought tickets to Millie ahead of time
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But then we went to TKTS and got tickets to Yurintown and Malamantia
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And that was a trip one weekend that we came from my birthday. And you knew you were going to come here
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Yes, and we came specifically so I could see Millie because I had bought that album at Barnes & Noble
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I was wearing out that CD. And I listened to Not for the Life of Me when I moved to the city, and my mom drove me in to now be working with Janine Tesori, who wrote that music
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Full circle moment. It's so full circle. And I've told her that with crying
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You know, I've cried and told her about it. So anyway, we've had those moments shared, but it's just beyond all your
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wildest dreams. You've had incredible highs with this show and you've had incredible lows with
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this show because I know you lost your dad during this and you and I spoke a lot during that time
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period late at night. Yes, we did. A lot of time on Instagram. Yeah, we did. How did you deal with all
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of that? I'm trying to create and be productive creatively and deal with grief and how did the show
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help you? I think being as honest and present as possible. And I really credit the creatives for being as open to me as a grieving person
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You know, grief doesn't end. And grief isn't ever-flowing, growing, living, breathing situation
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And we would be in rehearsals, and there was times I had to leave the room crying
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and I would have to sit in the bathroom stall for a while and then come back in. Or things would trigger me that I didn't realize when we moved into the Atlantic
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and I saw we had a real hospital bed off Broadway. And when I walked, I just walked by it
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We were on a break and I had a breakdown. And I had to text our stage manager and our director and said, I just saw the bed
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I may not be able to be near it or look at it for we were in tech
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I said, I don't know, but that was so overwhelming. And I was taken right back to the hospital where I just spent so much time with my dad
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And I may not be able to do that. And they're like, okay. So it's scary to be so vulnerable and real
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about where you are, but what I found was such beauty and the honesty of it and the graciousness
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of others to say, let's not hide it. We do so much of hiding of who we are as actors, and you're
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supposed to be perfect and you're supposed to be like, you're not supposed to have a bad day, but like you, if I can come to work, my grief is coming with me. And this show deals with so
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much of that and deals with living with where we are now and what we have now. And what we have
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now and making the most of it. And so the beautiful lesson in that has been to find the beauty and to find the joy in it
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Because there was so much laughter in those hospital rooms days. And there were so many concerts
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We would sing, like my family sang. One of my last nights with my dad was my brother and I alone, the three of us, just singing for about 30 minutes
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taking videos. And, you know, you do. what you got to do, even when you're like
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well, you've got time, we've got time. Yeah. And we had like a week left. You know what I mean
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So it's, it's just, it's a, the show is a gift and a reminder of being present
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Yeah. And being grateful, and I know the depths of the pain that is in this show very well
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What I bring to Deborah, Deborah has got a lot of loss and a lot of darkness there
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She's all alone in the world. Yeah. She doesn't have anybody but Kimmy
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And peeking that underneath that fuels the comedy that fuels that all the stuff I know those depths I know that desperation Yeah It a high and low It a roller coaster
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There are some days that it still gets me. Yeah. And I know that will, that is what it is
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Again, like we said, it's living and breathing. But accepting it and having everyone around me know
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and be present and we talk about it and then you talk to somebody
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and then you learn if someone else is great. Sure. It's beautiful. Like that's what we should
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That's humanity. And that's what our show should be doing. Yeah. It's starting these conversations, starting this, like, openness, this
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there shouldn't be shame and grief or feeling like I can't do something today
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And being open as a channel is, like, part of the job
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And it's a hard part and it's also a gift. You're an inspiration to so many people because of how you carry yourself
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how you're comfortable in your own skin now, and you're so body positive
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And that's a big thing you put out there. there, just so many people, what that means to you of how many people you help
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You know, I met someone at the stage door last night with tears in her eyes. She just graduated college and she said she never would have, sorry, gotten into the business
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Never weren't for me. Because you were told by a mentor. Yeah
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Which is the worst that you would never work, right? Yeah. Out of love, out of saying just the world won't want it
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And I love you, so I want to protect you from it. And a couple of teachers, like one being a plus size woman who said
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you'll work when you're 40. I just don't want you to know. Like, I don't want you to hope for more
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And to be part of the conversation and the landscape. And I look at this array of nominees this year is so beautiful in every way possible
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age, shape, race identity, all that we are shifting the dial. I think there's more to be shifted, but to have someone
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say that, that like I gave her hope that there's space for her is everything
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But you know, look at the career you have for yourself, and I know you've worked very hard
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because very few people open doors, and I know that. And you know that too
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I mean, everybody says they do, they don't. Yeah. And you've worked very hard at what you've accomplished
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Thank you. But you should be so proud of what you've done and the joy you give to so many people
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Thank you. And especially in the show you are now when I said, you just go out there and you just stop the show
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and you do it out of any concert. I've seen you do everything
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You go to a concert and you just put it out there and everybody falls in love with you
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and they fall in love with what you give them as an artist. Thank you
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What does this nomination mean to you? It means the world. It feels like recognition of all of those years
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we've discussed of trying to put myself out there and it's a scary thing to do
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and to be vulnerable and to try to lead with kindness and an open heart
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And I'm a cheerleader for everybody around me because that's what I hope the world looks like
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that we cheer for each other more than ourselves. And it means the world that now, you know
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I've done so many readings, so many workshops over the years that I have felt a part of the community for a long time
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but there is something in, like I feel like, oh, I'm in it now
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Like, I'm in the club. And all these people that are like
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finally, these artists that I've loved and known for years now that
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I used to idolize, that have become friends, that are like, the world's catching on
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because it's taken a while to get here. But I feel such gratitude
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in my personal journey to get here because it's just, it's made
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me a better artist for it, the highs and the lows and the roller coaster
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of it all, and I'm just grateful for every second. You maneuvered through it beautifully
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because like I said, not only are you super talented, you were super nice. So I wish you
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nothing but the best for you. Thank you. I love you. I love you. Fabulous
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So nice
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