With 2 1/2 years of experience as a swing Off-Broadway and on national tours, Elon graduate looks forward to the freedom of developing her own role onstage every night as she joins the cast of Pippin.
“I always say, ‘You want an audition for a Broadway show?’ Schedule a vacation,” Mackenzie Bell says.
That’s because just days after ending the National Tour of Flashdance, she recalls having to adjust her vacation in order to make an invited dance call for Pippin, where she made the initial cut down to seven performers. Ultimately, she was invited to join the cast as one of the Fosse Showgirl Players in the troupe. She will also cover the roles of Catherine, Fastrada and Berthe, the latter being Pippin’s sixty-six year old grandmother, a character for which she credits the aid of her Elon impediment training in order to perform.
Though her rehearsal process has been similar to that of her past experiences as a replacement, she expressed that Pippin is a unique show in that it allows for more creative freedom due to the circus setting. “I’m not just taking the movements of the girl who came before me, I get to find the movement and feeling and life that feels organic to me in this world,” said Bell, looking forward to her Broadway premiere.
Although she has performed Off-Broadway in Carrie, and has gone on the road with the National Tours of Jersey Boys and Flashdance, Pippin will be Bell’s first Broadway show. Bell felt her journey came full circle when she received the casting call for the show at her mother’s dance studio in Syracuse, where she grew up and began dreaming of Broadway. But she still believes she will not have her “Wow, I’m on Broadway” moment until stepping onto that stage on Aug. 19.