Interview: Jillian A. Smith of MY FAIR LADY at San Francisco Playhouse

If there are dream roles and then there are dream roles, Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady clearly belongs in the latter category. It is the stuff of icons, having been created on Julie Andrews, essayed onscreen by Audrey Hepburn and played most recently on Broadway by Laura Benanti. Jillian A. Smith is currently taking on the role at San Francisco Playhouse and the magnitude of the opportunity is not lost on her. When I spoke with her recently, she bubbled over with a sort of “I can’t really believe this is happening” sense of gratitude.

Given that Eliza requires a gleaming lyric soprano rather than serious dance chops, I was fascinated to learn that Smith originally had serious ballerina ambitions, going as far as studying at Moscow’s iconic Bolshoi Academy. When she decided that the “all in” world of ballet might not be sufficiently fulfilling, she began delving into theater and… engineering. (Yes, you read that correctly.) After graduating from UC Berkeley with a degree in Computer Science, Theater and Dance, she embarked on a dual musical theater/engineering career path. Having grown up in the South Bay, she currently maintains two home bases, San Francisco and New York City, to maximize audition opportunities.

I caught up with Smith by phone on a Friday afternoon just before she was headed into the theater for the first of four performances over that weekend. She talked about how she’d been drawn to My Fair Lady since childhood, how much she admires the strength and complexity of Eliza’s character, how she maintains her health in such a vocally taxing role, and how her dancer’s training comes in handy even in this largely non-dancing role. In conversation, she struck me as spirited, quick, passionate and thankful. It was evident how much she couldn’t wait to get to the theater to see what new layers she might discover in playing Eliza again that night. The following has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Eliza Doolittle is easily one of the most iconic roles in the entire musical theater canon. Is it a role you’d always hoped to play someday?

Absolutely. I grew up loving the music of My Fair Lady, and I also kind of attribute my love of musical theater to Julie Andrews. I grew up watching The Sound of Music over and over and over again with my dad and making him sing all the songs with me. Getting to do anything that she has touched is such a dream come true, on top of it already being such a great musical and such a great role.

Was your first exposure to My Fair Lady the movie version or had you seen it onstage?

I first knew it from the movie with Audrey Hepburn. I actually don’t think I have seen it onstage, I’ve only performed it. And I’ve read Pygmalion.

Eliza is such a complex character and her relationship with Higgins is anything but clearcut. During their initial meeting at Covent Garden, he doesn’t treat her very kindly so why do you think she still goes to his house to meet up with him?

She has a desire to lift herself out of the world that she has been born into, and I don’t think she has seen many avenues for that. It’s a really brave thing she does. It’s very interesting that Pickering says he’s going to go stay with Higgins at 27a Wimpole Street in that first scene, because Pickering treats her very kindly from the beginning. She offers him a flower and he doesn’t buy it, but he gives her some coins. So I think it’s twofold, one it’s wanting to lift herself out of her current situation, and two, she knows there will be someone there who hopefully is an ally.

I think it’s so interesting that it’s she who chooses to initiate the relationship in earnest, which does give her a certain agency.

Yeah, it shows such courage and strength on her part. The most powerful transformation is the one you make for yourself, and even though she’s assisted by Higgins, this is really her transformation.

What do you see as the pivotal moment when their relationship becomes something more than just purely transactional, at least for Eliza?

I think it happens somewhere in “The Rain in Spain,” but it’s a little tricky because there’s also so much that we don’t see. She starts to figure out how to speak properly and she goes to Ascot, and then there’s a big gap between that and when she goes to the ball, there’s more training. I think somewhere in that montage of her learning, and “Rain in Spain,” she realizes that they’re also friends. They’re so excited for her when she gets it, even beyond I think their own bet, that there’s something more there.

I love the scene when Eliza appears all dressed up for the ball. How much fun is that to play?

Omigosh, it’s such a beautiful moment. My parents came to see the show and they were like “I love that you got like 20 seconds to be a princess.” It really is a dream come true. It’s the ultimate dress-up moment, partly because of the elegance and poise you get to put on, and partly because you get to wear something so fabulous.

You’re now in the middle of a summerlong run, which is basically unheard of in regional theater these days. What is it like for you as an actor to get a chance to play a role for that many performances?

It’s so exciting because you discover new things throughout the whole journey and you really get to settle into it. I’ve noticed such a difference in our performances from opening night to now, and we still have so far to go with it. It’s exciting to really get to find all of those nuanced moments and explore new things in the story together. And it’s just such a dreamy role – the music is beautiful and she’s so meaty acting-wise because of her bold transformation that I feel really lucky to sit with that so long instead of having to say goodbye so quickly.

Can you point to a specific moment that you think you’re playing better now that you’ve had more time in the role?

I think the biggest one for me personally is Eliza’s final scene in the garden with Professor Higgins. That is such a big scene and it’s where she really gets to step into her power and kind of flip the dynamic between them. I think at the very beginning of the run I didn’t fully step into that power. She was still a little bit shy, she was still a little bit too nice to Professor Higgins. Obviously, she’s not supposed to be mean, but I feel like by becoming more comfortable with the role I’ve been able to step into how much she can own that moment. And it’s really interesting because I feel like it resonates and lands with audiences better. There are more laughs and more applause for her. I feel like getting to step into that fully, with the confidence that I have now, is really making a difference.

My Fair Lady has been part of the canon for so long that people can forget how radical the ending is, so quiet, no razzmatazz, no megamix of the big tunes.

I know, right? It ends on such a – it’s not a cliffhanger, necessarily, but there’s so many different interpretations of the ending, which is really cool. It’s a pretty radical ending, especially given the time that the musical was written.

How have you been managing to maintain your physical and vocal health?

That’s something I’ve been very careful of this summer, cause it’s such a big sing. I’ve been really disciplined, more so than I’ve probably been in any other role I’ve done. I’m very strict with sleep, nothing replaces my eight hours, I drink a ton of water, I do an extensive warmup before the show, a cool down, steam the voice and try to use everything that I have been taught from any teacher about vocal health and stamina and placing things in a very sustainable place.

You studied ballet very seriously while growing up. How did you ultimately come to the conclusion that it wasn’t the right career path for you?

I love ballet so much and will dance anytime anyone asks me to, but I eventually came to the conclusion that the part I loved about ballet the most actually was the storytelling element of it. That’s what drew me specifically to ballet rather than focusing on some other kind of dance styles or competition dance, because I loved telling a story through the arc of the ballet.

I looked at my future and I was like “Well, I could go down this trainee route in a ballet company, but I’m not sure if having my whole life be ballet would be fulfilling for me.” The ballet life is pretty intense, and as much as I loved ballet, I was more interested in the storytelling and got more fulfillment out of that. Which is why I transitioned to musical theater, cause you get both elements - you get to dance and you also get to tell the story.

My next question was prompted by seeing Chita Rivera years ago in The House of Bernarda Alba, an intense drama with no music at all. She was still fabulous in a non-dancing role, but I remember vividly than after her last bow, as she was running into the wings and probably didn’t realize the audience could still see her, she launched into this perfect little jeté, like she just could not suppress her inner dancer. When you’re playing a role like Eliza that doesn’t require much in the way of movement, do you find yourself missing the chance to really show off your dancing chops?

I sometimes do, because it’s kind of my comfort zone. I look at the big numbers that are so fabulously choreographed and our ensemble is so good in, and I think it would be so much fun to be a part of “Get Me to the Church on Time” or “With a Little Bit of Luck.” I do miss it a little bit.

But it’s really funny you brought this up because – first of all, love Chita Rivera, what an icon. And second of all, my castmates have actually been making fun of me because my final bow in the show, instead of just bowing normally, I kind of go into a deep plié cause that’s how I learned to bow for ballets. So they always joke with me that I can’t let the dancer go. Even at the very end, I maintain that little piece of dancer in me. [laughs]

But it’s so deeply ingrained in your body, how can you not?

And it’s actually been particularly useful for Eliza. I mean, Audrey Hepburn was a ballerina so that really fed into a lot of her work as well, but I feel like having access to the posture and the elegance that a lot of times ballet brings is really useful for Eliza’s transformation. I have to strip it down at the beginning, but then I feel like it gives her more of a sense of full transformation when she’s got the posture and the grace and moves very elegantly. It’s been fun to incorporate that.

You’re the only person I’ve ever talked to who has a degree in Computer Science, Theater and Dance.

Yeah, kind of a crazy combo there! I come from a long line of engineers and so I’m sort of the oddball for going the artistic route. But I always really liked math and science growing up, which is why when I decided to step back from ballet, I thought, “Oh, well, I’ll also pursue that. There’s a bit more stability just in case this performing thing doesn’t work out.” [laughs] But they’re all passions and I try to keep them all in my life. I’ve been working at Twitch, the livestreaming company, for a while and doing engineering for them, and that’s been really fulfilling cause I get to sort of satisfy that math and science part of my brain while also working on a platform that supports artists, and then just performing as much as I can, too.

As you’re getting ready to head to the theater shortly, what are you most looking forward to about tonight’s performance?

I adore that question! You know, I just look really forward every day to working with this cast. I feel so lucky that everyone is so kind on top of being so talented. One of the reasons we’ve really been able to discover new moments and sink into things in new ways is because everybody is so open creatively and really engaged and alive onstage. I feel like every day I find a new moment with somebody, or we do something a slightly new way, particularly Adam [Magill] who plays Professor Higgins and Brady [Morales-Woolery] who plays Pickering. They are so fun and playful and I look forward to getting to do our scenes and see what we find today. I feel so lucky.

(all photos by Jessica Palopoli)

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