Exclusive: SCHMIGADOON!’s Kaleigh Cronin Recalls Performing Until She Was 8 Months Pregnant: ‘I Felt Brave’
‘Knowing how awesome it was to be growing a human whilst doing what I love really gave me the energy to get through it,’ the actress exclusively tells BroadwayWorld.
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At around 34 weeks pregnant, Kaleigh Cronin said farewell to her fellow Schmigadoonians in the Broadway musical Schmigadoon! — but felt so good, she could’ve stuck around for more.
“Honestly, up until the day I went into labor, I was like, ‘I could still be doing this,’” Cronin, now mom to six-week-old Charlie Joseph De Simini — whom she shares with husband John De Simini — exclusively tells BroadwayWorld.
“I just felt so fortunate to feel so great throughout,” Cronin explains. “I mean, poor Richard [Riaz] Yoder, who’s the dance partner of the century, was having to flip me upside down and put me on his shoulders every day — so it might’ve gotten more difficult after the 34 weeks for him!”
Cronin, who played Helen Pritt in Schmigadoon!, made headlines in May, when she had back-to-back principal debuts in the musical understudying the leading roles of Mildred Layton and Melissa Gimble. She stepped in for Ana Gasteyer and Sara Chase all within the same week — and did so while pregnant.
“Every step of the way, the creative team was saying, ‘Whatever you need, whatever accommodations we need to make, we will do that for you,’ which just took so much stress off of me,” Cronin explains. “I luckily — shockingly — didn’t need any adjustments choreographically, performance-wise at all. But what did need major adjustments was the costume.”
Cronin says that Schmigadoon!’s wardrobe team rose to the occasion without missing a beat. “Every single day, I’d get a little bigger and a little different, and they worked tirelessly, the seamstresses, to fit the outfits on me, sometimes in real time,” she says. “I don’t know what magic they did with the costumes, but truly you could not even tell in some of them that I was pregnant. And that was, I mean, close to being at nine months.”
While the first time going on as an understudy can come with some nerves, Cronin says she felt relatively calm throughout the entirety of her run in Schmigadoon! because everything became about sharing this special moment with her baby.
“I felt more empowered,” she says. “I felt stronger. Just knowing how awesome it was to be growing a human whilst doing what I love really gave me the energy to get through it. Also, the show is such a happy show, and I think that really helped. My mental health throughout was just so positive.”
The actress — who has also been seen on Broadway in Death Becomes Her, Bad Cinderella, Mrs. Doubtfire, Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, A Bronx Tale and Cabaret — has even performed on the Tony Awards in the past. But this time felt different.
“I can get major performance anxiety,” Cronin admits. “I think this was my fourth time performing on the Tonys, and before every other time I performed, I would get so, so anxious just about the scope of it — how large of a setting [it is], it being on national television. Am I going to mess up dance steps on national TV?”
This time around, because she was carrying baby Charlie, “the focus became entirely on: ‘Take in this incredible experience. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to share this thing you love doing more than anything with the life you’re creating,’” she says. “It just becomes so much greater than you and the dance steps, as important as they are.”
“I felt more brave,” she explains. “I felt stronger. I felt more confident.”
Especially exciting for Cronin was getting to perform alongside longtime best friend Max Clayton, whom she’s known since childhood.
“We’ve never been in the same show, never even in the same workshop or rehearsal room,” the actress explains. “And then it finally happened with this show, which felt like it was such a gift from the universe that all this very meaningful stuff was happening all together.”
Before Cronin began maternity leave, she got to perform the role of Melissa alongside Clayton’s Danny Bailey. And to top it all off, Melissa even jokes with Danny that she is definitely not pregnant from their casual fling. “It was extra funny to be declaring, ‘I am not pregnant,’” says Cronin, “obviously very much knowing that I am.”
Though it was hard to say goodbye to the cast and crew at Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre, Cronin is excited to settle into her new adventure as Mom.
After she and her husband welcomed little Charlie on August 1, she sent a message to the cast from the hospital that said, “Look who’s here: the newest Schmigadoonian.”
“That day, when they came into work, one of the sweet stage managers printed a copy of the Schmigazette announcing Charlie’s birth with a picture of all of us,” she says. “I’m still on the cast group chat, so it was blowing up with messages of support and love.”
While Cronin plans to eventually get back to performing, her current focus is taking in this new time as a family of three.
“It was very full-circle when the Schmigadoon! cast album came out to listen and dance around in our living room, holding him to it,” she says. “It’s just so cool that this is going to forever be a part of his life. Every second is rewarding. I still can’t believe that he’s real. I pinch myself every day, and I’m just so grateful that I got to have theater and Broadway and Schmigadoon! specifically be a part of the journey.”
While Cronin is taking a brief hiatus from the eight-show-week life, right now, she says, “I’ll be doing ‘Corn Puddin’” in my living room with Charlie.”
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Kaleigh Cronin
