Interview: Lisa Howard of WHAT CHRISTMAS MEANS TO ME at 54 Below Talks About Her New Album and What's Next
Lisa Howard Plays 54 Below on December 12
By: Ricky Pope Nov. 26, 2021
There are some people who manage to make everything look so easy, even the difficult things. Lisa Howard is just such a person. She has worked with some of the best and brightest on Broadway. She has won a Drama Desk Award and been nominated for another. Her powerhouse voice feels as effortless as a cool breeze on a summer day. She's been directed by James Lapine, David Hyde Pierce, Joe Mantello, Bartlett Sher, and Christopher Ashley, and yet it always looks like she glided on from the wings and just made up something brilliant.
Her performances in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, South Pacific, 9 to 5, Priscilla, Queen on the Desert, It Shoulda Been You, and Escape to Margaritaville run the gamut of comedic styles. She has extraordinary access to her emotions on stage and she is one of the finest vocal technicians in the business. But Lisa Howard's considerable technique is never visible. She makes musical comedy look simple.
She also makes interviews look pretty easy. I was fortunate enough to sit down with Lisa recently to talk about the release of her new Christmas album The Most Wonderful Time of the Year and her upcoming show at 54 Below What Christmas Means to Me which is doubling as an album-release concert. Talking to Lisa Howard was like lunch with an old friend that you just met. Here are some of the highlights:
Welcome to Broadway World. How's your morning?
Good. I was just going over my show script and lyrics.
Oh my gosh. Isn't that nice to be able to say that? Congratulations on your, on your album, The Most Wonderful Time of the Year. It's released tomorrow, right?
Yes, it's officially out there.
Last night I went to listen to, the one track you can listen to. It's so exciting. I'm having trouble getting in the Christmas spirit right now because I'm working in Florida, the sunniest place on earth.
What's the temperature there now?
Seventy-four degrees.
I have to say yesterday, it was really strangely warm here. It was like 72 here. So not that much different than Florida. Of course this morning, it's 39 degrees. So...
Now, where are you?
I'm in New York. I live in Jersey, right across the river.
Okay. So tell me, why did you decide that this was the year that you needed to do a Christmas album?
Well, I mean I always have loved Christmas music and over the past 18 months, I missed doing creative things. Work just wasn't there. And so to keep that part of me going and to be using those muscles... because Zoom concerts don't count. I mean, it was all lovely and I did a lot of them right here in my dining room. I have worked for years with my good friend, Michael Shaieb who is a composer and also has a recording studio. I've worked with him for years on different projects. We were saying, "You know, we should really do a Christmas album. Yeah! Let's do that. Let's do a Christmas album." But what songs do you choose? You know?
That's my question. There are thousands of them. How did you decide that these songs were the ones?
Well in knowing that if you have an album, you're usually going to do a debut concert, or you're going to want to promote that album in the concert world or the cabaret world later on. So I came up with the concept of the show first and picked the songs that way and then narrowed them down and we chose what would be best for the album.
That's smart.
You know, I would have had to make a really random show based on random songs I chose. So I thought of it as a show first.
That makes sense. What are your favorite Christmas traditions? What is Christmas in your house like?
We spend Christmas Eve with my husband's family, at his sister's house, with my mother-in-law and his other sister. They're Italian. So when I joined his family, I had never done, you know, the seven fishes on Christmas Eve. We always do like all kinds of different stuff like coconut shrimp and linguine and clam sauce. All these things that, for me were not Christmas meals.
That sounds a lot more exciting than my Irish family.
What did you guys have?
We had very traditional things like ham and turkey and dressing.
Me too. We always try to be home in the morning because I have two kids and so we want to be home for Santa to come and all that stuff. And then we usually go to one of my husband's aunt's house or his mom's. The sisters trade off who has Christmas dinner. And then usually the day after Christmas, we drive to Ohio, which is where my family is from, and spend the holiday with my immediate family.
You get the best of both worlds.
It's hard when there are two families. You just kind of have to compromise and make it work.
I want to talk a little about your career and all the wonderful things that you've done. You've worked with some of the most amazing actors like Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Sierra Boggess and Allison Janney, Robert Pattinson, and David Hyde Pierce. But I think what I and my readers most want to know about is what is the experience of actually squaring off with Tyne Daly like?
She's a force to be reckoned and I love her for it. She knows her mind and, boy she knows her way around a scene. So if she asks you or tells you to do something, you do it...because she's right. I learned a lot from working with her. I honestly learned a lot working on that show in general of just coming into your own. She is wonderful. There was a tradition that I loved. She would get ready fairly early and then make her rounds and go around to everyone's dressing room before every show and say hello and check-in.
That's classy.
Yeah. She's classy. I'm struggling for words because yes, she is a force to be reckoned with. Don't mess with Tyne. Not that she would do anything, but she just has such resonance.
I would think you would have to be on top of your game at every moment.
Lisa Howard
Yes. Yes, or you'll hear about it. Which is an awesome thing.
I want to talk too about some of the characters that you have played. There seems to be a common thread among a lot of them. Characters like Tammy or Jenny or Missy Hart or, even Rona Lisa Peretti. There always seems to be this common element. There is some character being really awful to your character, and they're doing it for the best of reasons. They're always treating you atrociously out of love.
That's so funny. I never made that connection with all of them. Right.
Is there an element of your life that you have to deal with people being ugly to you out of love?
I mean, maybe there's a part of me who is a very patient/forgiving person. You can generate that kind of energy that says, "Okay, bring yourself to me and I can see what it is and not hate you for it" or something. I don't know. I understand what you mean though. I never made that connection between those characters. That's a good observation.
Tell me what you've been up to other than this album during the pandemic. I know you have been super busy, not necessarily with theater projects, but in your pivot projects.
Yeah. For one, I have kids. My seven-year-old did half of kindergarten and all the first grade in the dining room. I was very busy helping with homework and obviously, we all were cooking up a storm Everyone felt like eating all the time.
Well now, how did you end up being thinner at the end of the pandemic with everyone eating all the time? I certainly didn't.
Well, it was either that or go the opposite way. You know? That month of March, everyone was buying out the liquor store and we were eating literally like the world was ending.
Because it felt like it was.
Funny enough. It's one of those things where I found something. Gosh, over the years I've tried every diet known to man and you lose a little, and then eventually six months, a year later, it's back on. I had never tried this particular thing. I saw this lady on Facebook and she was like," I did it. Here, try this." You know, she didn't charge me anything. I was like, okay, I'll try it. It was intermittent fasting, keto, or low carb. I had tried intermittent fasting before and thought that's for the birds. I couldn't do it. And I also tried low-carb before. But combining the two works for me. And it wasn't hard. It wasn't like when you're on a diet and you're hungry all the time. And I was like, "I can't believe this is actually working. How come I never heard of this combination before?" You always think, "Oh, well it must just be me. I can't do it." Of course, it wasn't like a walk in the park, but it wasn't hard like other diets had been. I've just been trying to maintain for a while because I lost pretty quickly. So I'm intermittent fasting and keeping it "low-ish" carbs. I'm not all "keto" and "in ketosis." Low-carb and trying to stay away from the junk that makes you want other junk just works. I grew up in the 80s and 90s when they were like "Eat low-fat." That's the worst diet for anybody to do. They messed us all up.
They messed us all up. And they kept telling you to eat more grains. And the grains were what was causing the problem.
And we didn't know, you know? So for years you're eating all the wrong things, thinking you're trying to do the right thing. So really I just eat a lot of whole foods, not processed stuff, which I had been trying to do anyway to no avail. But once I finally figured out the combination that works for me, I was like, "Look at that! I'm not broken."
Well, of course you're not
If you've ever been a yo-yo dieter you kind of think, Well, geez, Louise". And then sometimes you're like, "Well now I just don't care." You know what I mean? You give up because after so many different diets over the years, you're going to be like, "Forget it!"
Well, that's good to know, for me personally. I'm not going to talk about your diet forever because nobody's diet is who they are.
No, no. But thanks for noticing and thanks for asking. I'm happy to share that. And if that helps somebody else, awesome. I mean, we all have troubles, right?
Don't we though. I want to talk about your voice, which is just fabulous. You are one of our diva powerhouse belters. Do you have rituals to maintain your voice when you are having to really belt eight times a week?
Yeah. I definitely warm up before the show and do my vocal exercises like any good voice teacher will tell you. It just maintains that flexibility so you're not slapping together some cold vocal cords. Stay hydrated and just keep your immune system up. It's the colds. When you get a cold and postnasal drip and all that stuff, that's what wears on the cords. And just keep singing. That was one thing over the pandemic, you know? You're like, "Well, there's nothing happening. I'm not doing anything." And so you don't sing for a while. Then you've got to get it back into gear. It's one of those, I want to say daily habits. Now that I'm rehearsing for a show, I sing daily, You have to maintain it, warming up and stretching your voice and going through songs in your book. It's really just about maintenance and singing in a healthy placement, not beating your cords up
Is your family supportive of your singing? Or do you have children that are like, "Mom, please stop?"
Yeah, they're a little bit like "Mom, please stop." My younger one not so much. He'll listen sometimes. If I'm practicing my Christmas music, he'll sing along with me, you know? Because it's fun, Christmas music. But the older one is definitely like "Can you stop that, please?"
So what is next for Lisa Howard? You said that you're rehearsing a show. Are you allowed to tell us what it is?
I think so. Starting in January, I'll be heading out on the road, to play Madame Morrible in Wicked.
Exciting.
Yeah. Fun. It'll be nice to be in such an established show. It'll be great to be working full time again. Also, I did have a guest spot on the new Julian Fellowes show, The Gilded Age. I'm not sure when the episode will air. I'll be sure to let everybody know, but I'm so excited about that show. I think it's going to be great.
I'm excited about that. I'm like the ultimate Downton Abbey fan.
Did you see they're coming out with another movie?
Yeah. They just released a trailer. It revealed Maggie Smith is still alive. That's all that anybody cared about. We're drawing to a close here. But before we wrap it I wanted to tell you how much I loved Escape to Margaritaville. It was such a surprise to me. I had not been a die-hard Jimmy Buffet fan, but it was so much fun. And the songs were so well utilized.
I don't know why more people didn't enjoy that show. I thought it was super fun. I was like "How could you not have fun at that show?"
And it was in such an interesting setting. I mean there was a volcano, for God's sake. It was like the inside of the Tiki Room at Disneyland or something.
I loved it.
Lisa Howard, I have loved talking to you and I can't wait for What Christmas Means to Me at 54 Below. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me today.
Thank you.
Lisa Howard: What Christmas Means to Me will play at Feinstein's 54 Below at 7 pm December 12. For tickets and information, go to 54below.com. For more about Lisa Howard, visit her website, lisahoward.com or follow her @lisahowardnyc on Instagram or @LisaHowardNYC on Twitter. Her new album, The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, as well as her other music is available on Spotify and all other streaming platforms.
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