ONCE UPON A ONE MORE TIME's Tess Soltau Takes Us Through Six Years With Broadway's New Britney Spears Musical

When new musicals open on Broadway, there are usually years of development behind the scenes that you do not see. That is the case even when the musical is as high-profile as the Britney Spears-fueled Once Upon a One More Time--not everything unfolds in public.

“We had a few different directors, so every director molded it into something a little bit different,” said Tess Soltau, who has played Betany, one of Cinderella's two stepsisters, since the beginning. “The bones are the same, but every time you’d come back for a new workshop, you’d be like: ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ You’d do that version of it and by the end, they’d be like: ‘Did that work? Should we go further? Should be push back?’”

Depending on which producer you ask or trade paper you read, you may get a different answer on whose idea it was to do a Britney Spears-powered musical in the first place, but everyone says the artist and/or her then team provided some general thematic recommendations. Obviously though, nothing fully fleshed out was handed over, producers and the creative team (including book writer Jon Hartmere) needed to create the piece.

Soltau first signed on in 2017 when Jerry Mitchell was attached to direct. But by the first reading in fall 2017, J.V. Mercanti, who now serves as Associate Director of the Broadway production, was at the helm.

“Betany was really smart in the beginning,” she explained. “She played dumb whenever the Cinderella story was being read, but whenever it wasn’t, she was always in the back reading or learning.”

Soltau explained that Betany’s original goal was to be friends with the princesses, which she achieved by the finale. That first reading also featured the character of the Evil Queen from Snow White lore singing the song “Crazy.” The song remains, but the character does not. According to Soltau, the actors still on board from that reading are her, Aisha Jackson (as Snow White) and Lauren Zakrin (who now plays Little Mermaid, but played Belle and Cinderella in different readings).

By mid-2018, Tyne Rafaeli had taken over as director and Soltau’s character had a new twist. “The next reading, I ended up with Rapunzel,” she said. “There was a little love storyline at the end. They used to wrap up each character--now there is more a collective resolution--and I found love with Rapunzel.”

This was the version Spears saw when she attended an intimate May 2018 reading with her mother and others. While Soltau never met Spears, she felt her supportive spirit. “She was luminous,” Soltau gushed. “She was with us in all the songs--she was clapping, she was dancing along, smiling and laughing. I’ll never forget it.”

After that reading, Kristin Hanggi took the helm with Keone and Mari Madrid attached as choreographers. There were additional presentations in summer 2018, fall 2018, spring 2019 and fall 2019 (this last one was the most fully staged, so likely a step-up in terms of Equity contract). During this period, Soltau saw her character become meaner, then revert back. The sisters chased Cinderella on horseback while singing “Piece of Me.” They went searching for glass slippers. The family also used to sing “Brightest Morning Star” (which is now sung by Cinderella and Snow White). None of the changes are particularly earth-shattering, but they go to show the effort that goes into developing the shows we see. Audience members see a product, but those in the industry know just how much went into creating that product.

Fans will remember that Once Upon A One More Time was originally slated to premiere in Fall 2019 in Chicago, with Hanggi as director. That mounting got moved to April 2020, which obviously didn’t happen because there was no theater in April 2020. By the time the show was announced for its rescheduled December 2021 world premiere, this time at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in D.C., Hanggi was gone and the Madrids were directing and choreographing, with well-known director David Leveaux as creative consultant.

“All the directors brought such different strengths to the piece,” she said. “But Mari, Keone and David are the sweetest. Keone and Mari lead with so much kindness and are so precise and articulate with their work. They are all about us being a team in the room. [During rehearals,] we would end every day all huddled up in the middle of the room to connect with each other one more time (pun intended) before we would leave for the day.”

Leveaux seemed an odd choice, but Soltau said he gets it. “When we talk about scene work, he gets so deep into a dramatic, super intellectual world,” she laughed. “The show is so fluffy, but he’s all ‘now we’re talking about the Berlin Wall.’ But he has drunk the juice, is super passionate about the show and is really a big cheerleader for us.”

Through the D.C. run and New York previews, there were of course changes. Between the runs, the stepsisters' costumes in the first act went from modern to traditional. The second act received a lot of work at the Marquis: scenes were added and taken away, a song ("3") was added. Normal stuff. This is all what should happen in the development process--the team gauges what things work and don’t work and tries to make the best possible show.

Soltau’s character now has her biggest moment in a revised “Work Bitch,” which she sings with her sister and mother. After all the tweaking, Betany and her sister Belinda are virtually interchangeable, both dense or, as Soltau puts it, “naïve.”

“In this version, her sister and her mom are her life,” Soltau stated. “It feels so much better now that we've made her someone who doesn't really think about consequences. Betany is the ultimate people-pleaser. She loves her family. She loves telling the story of Cinderella. When the narrator says ‘go,’ she thinks: ‘Oh my gosh, this is what I do good!’ Even though she never wins, the fact that she successfully tells the story is all that she needs.”

Soltau herself is happy to be telling this particular story on Broadway. She has replaced in two Broadway shows, and appeared in other world premieres that we expected to come, but this is her first time in a Broadway opening night Playbill. For her opening night gifts for the cast, she assembled a 90s care package complete with a Tamagotchi, temporary tattoos, wire necklace, slap bracelets, butterfly clips, sticky hands and those plastic frogs that hop when you push them with your thumb. She raved about the joy of opening night, complete with glitter pink carpet and an after-party with glitter bar and DJ Ari Grooves, who just happens to be actress, and former reading Repunzel, Ari Grover.

And it’s a pretty big deal for Soltau--who said she would run home to watch Spears videos on MTV--that Spears endorsed the show on Instagram. That news was announced to the cast via backstage loudspeaker at intermission of opening night, leading to screams and tears.

“That’s the only review I need,” she stated.

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