BWW Interviews: DEBUT OF THE MONTH: Erikka Walsh of ONCE

Erikka Walsh is making her Broadway debut in the Tony Award-winning musical ONCE, playing the role of the 'ex-girlfriend' and understudying for the lead role of 'Girl.' ONCE tells the story of an Irish musician and a Czech immigrant drawn together by their shared love of music. Over the course of one fateful week, their unexpected friendship and collaboration evolves into a powerful but complicated romance, heightened by the raw emotion of the songs they create together.

The actress originated her role in the Off-Broadway production of ONCE at the New York Theatre Workshop. She was also featured in A.R.T.'s production of 'Alice vs. Wonderland' and the SpeakEasy Stage Company's Striking 12.

Walsh recently chatted with BWW about landing this 'once' in a lifetime role which allows her to pursue her love of playing music and her passion for acting. As she told BWW, "it's a little crazy how much of my life is culminated on this stage."

You and the rest of the cast are so adept at moving from one instrument to another throughout the course of the show. How many different instruments do you actually play?

Well I came in knowing violin and piano and I now play mandolin. And because everybody at the show is such an awesome guitar player, I can't rightly say that I"m a guitar player. But I do know some chords and I can play some songs with them. 

Is it the sort of thing where, if you know how to play one stringed instrument it isn't too difficult to learn another, or is each one unique in its own way?

Well some stringed instruments are easier than others. I can probably play the viola fairly easily, but reading the music for the viola could be a little more difficult. When we were doing the workshop in Cambridge I tried to pick up Andy's (Taylor) cello and that was abysmal. That was just embarrassing. But playing a mandolin for me is easier because it has the same strings as the violin does. So the fingering is really familiar to me. But a guitar is completely different and I still don't even know a scale with the guitar. I just play it by ear and chord change, which I hear is how many guitar players play.

Did you begin your career as a musician or as an actress?

I kind of started more as a musician. When I was a kid I really, really, really wanted to play and my mother wouldn't get me lessons for a time because she thought it was just a phase. But apparently I started playing something that sounded like something, so my aunt was like, "you need to kind of get your daughter lessons now." But I was very adamant at a very young age about playing. I would take time for hours and hours to play when I was like eight and my mom was like, "oh no, she's not going to be social if she sits in her room playing all day. How about I take her to the theater and see if she would want to be in a show."

So that's when the acting came in.

Yes. And I kind of owe it to my mom to let me take the lessons and then get me out of the lessons, you know. So I did music and acting all through high school and when the decision for college came around I was like, "I don't know what to do. I want to do both." But I didn't know how to do that. But I knew I needed more training one way or another. So I applied for half music, half acting for colleges and then I got in half and half, so I was right back to where I started.

But in the end, I decided that I had had a lot of music training from summer camps and different programs in high school, and I was like, "you know something, if I ever want to do theater I know I need more of that right now, so let's go and do theater for a while." So I went on to Temple for that and then I wound up giving up music for a few years and I was just like, "nope, I do theater, I don't do music. I am not a violinist," and I ended up having an identity crisis almost. Cause people in my life would meet me as an actor and I was like, "no no no, I'm a musician!" but nobody had ever seen me be a musician. But all my training is in the theater.

So in many ways this show is really the perfect vehicle for you.

Yes! It's a little crazy how much of my life is culminated on this stage.

How did your casting for the show come about?

Well I was very fortunate to be studying at A.R.T. as a student for grad school. I was at their institute and (ONCE director) John Tiffiany was working at Radcliffe for his fellowship - he had been working with my class outside of anything involving Once, like it was part of his research and we were kind of at his disposal. And when it came time to bring the production to A.R.T. in the spring he simply said, "do you guys have actors and musicians?", thinking it would be a good opportunity for us to basically do an ensemble kind of part and that's what I basically wound up doing at A.R.T. I didn't have lines, did some of the same stuff that I do now, but it was just like "student ensemble."  

And then you were cast from there?

Well, everybody was like, "don't go anywhere, you're going to be fine, we'll see you again soon," and I was like, "alright - thank you? I'll see you later?" I 'm always really, really hopeful but not counting my chickens before they hatched by any means. And I had to wait. I graduated in May, and I had to wait until July. I had heard everyone else in the workshop had been cast, and I was hearing all these things and I was thinking, "oh my God they're not going to call me!" And the day that they were having auditions in New York, I was living in Seattle at the time, and the day they were having auditions in New York, I was going to be flying across the world to Bosnia. So I was like, "guys you don't understand how much this means to me but I literally cannot be there."

Wow, so they obviously made an exception.

They were like, "we know how you work, but we really need to see you play piano. Can you make a video?" and I was like, "sure". But I was in Seattle and I didn't have a piano - none of my friends had a piano. So it was literally, me, my friend from grad school and the man who is now my fiancé, with a flip camera in the Seattle Public Library, because they have a room there. And then we got kicked out of the library because they were closing! In fact I'm pretty sure on the video you can hear the closing chimes. (laughing) So then we went to my fiancé's conference room in his office, it was a Sunday, and I was like, "let's just do this, let's just do this, I have to get this out!" Oh man it was nerve-racking. And I kept thinking, "maybe they'll appreciate the humor of this video."

I hope you still have that video.

Oh I do. It's not on-line but I have it!

When you began off-Broadway, did you have an immediate sense of what a special show it was?

Oh yeah. I remember being in the basement of the church in Cambridge that we used as a rehearsal space for A.R.T and we did a play/read through of it, we played the music as well. And when we went through the script for the first time and we all just picked up the music and played it the first time, I was like, "oh my God, this is what I've really been waiting for." It was immediate - it was an orchestra, but it wasn't an orchestra, it was disciplined but it was also organic - it was really perfect. And they're such incredible, incredible musicians. I'm getting emotional now just remembering that moment, but it was a special time for all of us.

It looks like you are all having so much fun up on stage. How do you maintain that energy or does it just happen?

It really just happens. I usually try to be extremely dedicated on stage every night for me personally, it's just the way I'm wired. But of course, everyone has a night where the energy is a little lower or something's happening but we get that twenty minutes on that stage before the show starts and it doesn't really matter what's happening in your life. Playing our music with each other and being our crazy selves and whatever we do that night, it just helps everything.

So that pre-show not only helps to set the mood for the audience, it also gets you energized as well.

Absolutely! It's a warm-up and when we first went on Broadway I was like, "Erikka, now you get to calm down because you get to be on stage for twenty minutes before anything happens. That's the cool thing about when understudies come on to the show. I tell them, "you can be nervous but just remember you're going to play music with us for twenty minutes first and it's all going to be okay."

What was it like for you and the cast the night the show won the Tony for Best Musical?

It was crazy cause we went and performed our number and then we were brought back to the theater to get out of costume and we knew we had just a limited amount of time before Steve's (Kazee) and Cristin's (Milioti) categories and the Best [Musical category.] So some people hopped in a cab, ran down to the after-party early, some people went to another location where others were, and then there were a bunch of us who stayed at the theater at the stage door where they had a monitor there for the entrance, so we switched it over to the Tony's. We were crowded around the stage door monitor just watching and screaming and falling to our knees, and crying and making all this noise and completely wrecking our voices from joy. I'm pretty sure that people on the street probably heard us screaming bloody murder!

Do you feel anything has changed since then?

No. And not in a bad way. I think that before that night, we were always nervous at how we would be perceived because our show has very minimal theatricality to it, it's all very basic and simple yet in a way, also complicated and beautiful. But we were always, "oh my God, oh my God - are they going to like it?" And I think after the Tony's we were like, "Oh my God, they like it! This works - people have chosen to honor it! And it was just amazingly grounding, at least for me. Like we created this -we did this - that is cool! And so it gave us a nice energy to be more confident in ourselves.

Can you share what the night of your Broadway debut was like?

I don't even know! You know everybody said, "now remember this because it's going to be the most important night of your life, well maybe not most important, but people told me, "you've got to remember this", "you'll always remember this." And they were really happy for me since I had just come out of graduate school.

But all I remember is that we got done with the show, and I was like, "ok, we're doing two bows tonight, right? So we gotta go back out there again and then we're done." So we were all backstage after the second bow and nobody stopped clapping and we were like, "do we go back out? What do we do? Are we getting out of costume?" We just weren't sure what to do. So we went back out for that third one and I think I blacked out, I must have blacked out because I don't really remember what happened!

But it was magical and inspiring and everything that I always wanted to do with my life with people who I'm absolutely honored to do it with. But it's also a little scary because part of me is like, "What's next?" I can't imagine. I mean I'm sure they'll be wonderful and creative things ahead, but right now it's pretty perfect.

ONCE is currently playing at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, 242 West 45th Street. For tickets and further information, please visit: www.oncemusical.com