Samara Follette encountered something unexpected on the path to New York City last year for a prestigious high school theater program: fellow Nebraskans with Broadway chops.
While in the Big Apple, the 2024 Lincoln Northeast graduate received coaching from two Broadway veterans from her home state. For Follette, it proved transformational.
“Knowing that people … were in the exact same place I’m in and wanted it just as badly as I did and continued to go after it until they were successful, despite what people were saying and the odds of doing it from Nebraska, is the most inspiring thing in the world.”
Follette’s experience is one example of a larger story playing out back in her home state, as a growing cadre of Nebraskans on Broadway come back home to teach, coach, mentor and – perhaps most importantly – to show that it can be done.
“We think it’s really important to feature Nebraskans. It’s certainly more meaningful to have an artist who is one of our own make that connection,” said Joan Squires, president of Omaha Performing Arts.
Omaha Performing Arts (OPA) and the Lied Center for Performing Arts in Lincoln regularly arrange masterclasses and workshops when they host Broadway touring shows.
In the last two years alone, Omaha natives and Broadway actors Q. Smith, Kevyn Morrow and Stephanie Kurtzuba came back to give back.
Smith and Morrow, along with dancer-choreographer Ray Mercer, enjoy long associations with the Nebraska High School Theater Academy, a statewide OPA education and engagement program.
“I always had the dream to come back and share my experiences,” said Mercer, who danced in the Broadway production of “The Lion King.” “When I started to develop my relationship with OPA I knew I was doing something special in being able to share my career in theater and dance.”
Smith, who held a prominent role in the Broadway production of “Come from Away,” has also taught at the Lied’s Triple Threat Broadway Intensive in Lincoln and the Summer Musical Theatre Academy at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Smith’s husband and fellow Broadway vet Lawrence Stallings also helped at the summer academy.
“I love coming home because I see myself in each one of the kids we work with,” said Smith, a Omaha North High School and UNO graduate. “I can’t help but want to go back and talk to young folks who are hungry and desire to have a path to do something big and great and reach their dreams. It’s nice to bring home everything I’ve gained and learned throughout my career in helping inspire people from my hometown.”
Related story: Nebraska’s Broadway legacy long, strong, more accessible
Smith and Stallings’ help at UNO’s summer academy last year contributed to “the best (academy) we’ve done,” said founder Hal France. It culminated in a July production of “Legally Blonde.”
“They’re very creative and thoughtful about each person they work with in terms of what they need and how they can get them to go. … It’s all about trying to get people to realize their strengths,” France said of the teaching duo.
Students who aspire to Broadway tend to stay locked in when the instructor has been there.
“We’re not retired telling you how it was done back when we were pursuing our careers. We’re actively doing it,” said Stallings, who has appeared in “Hair” and “The Book of Mormon.”
Suggestions the couple make to students are things they need to be reminded of themselves.
Said Stallings, “So the inspiration flows both ways. We remember what it was like to be young and full of dreams. We remember meeting people in the business in awe, having a thousand questions and just wanting to know it was possible.”
Follette experienced a taste of that herself last year. She and Blair High School grad Derek Penner earned the right to represent Nebraska at the Jimmy Awards in New York, where they got to work and perform with Broadway stars. Follette won the Rising Star Award.
Both Smith and Morrow worked with her and noted a maturity beyond her years. She worked rigorously and knew how to make a song her own.
“I just knew in my gut she was going to be recognized … I know that her light is so bright people can’t help but notice,” Smith said.
Follette said she’s a “self-taught singer, dancer, composer, everything” who takes pride in outworking other Broadway aspirants, so “getting the award that literally recognized the hard work I’ve put in meant so much to me, especially to have people much more advanced than me see that.”
Squires said she “teared up” when Follette signed to her deaf mother back home in Lincoln. It was a moment for the entire Nebraska theater academy family – national recognition of her talent and the hard work that she and her coaches back in Nebraska put in.
“Coming from an area or school that gets overlooked for performing arts and knowing there are people who … say ‘you’re very good’ is such a nice feeling because you don’t get that a lot,” said Follette, who credited Smith with preparing her for the moment.
Smith’s encouragement played a big part in Brannon Evans making the leap to New York. Smith, Evans said, remains a support. “She’s very invested in my growth. It’s really beautiful to have her in my corner.”
Sometimes a Broadway artist’s eye for talent can be as impactful as their instruction.
Karissa Denae Johnson long harbored musical theater aspirations before winning the part of Deena in “Dreamgirls” at the Omaha Community Playhouse. It didn’t take long for Mercer, who choreographed the show, to recognize Johnson’s potential.
“There is something about a hungry, ambitious artist I can recognize immediately. I saw that in Karissa the moment I walked in the room for the first day of rehearsal,” Mercer said.
He told Johnson she has what it takes to make it in New York. That assessment was all the validation she needed to move there. She’s booking screen gigs while hoping for a theater break.
“Ray Mercer was very encouraging about launching out,” she said.
Encouragement, dosed with reality checks, is most useful for aspiring or emerging artists, said France, the founder of the UNO summer academy.
Veteran stage-screen actor Merle Dandridge didn’t sugarcoat her struggles during 2019 masterclasses at her alma mater, Papillion La Vista High School.
After moving to New York City alone, she scoured a trade publication and highlighted every audition she could be seen for, arriving early so that she would be at the top of the call list if more established actors didn’t show up. “That’s how I booked my first three jobs,” Dandridge said, “including my Broadway debut. So whatever your version of that hustle is – get to it.”
Younger artists, including recent NHSTA alums Lauren Johnson and Nadia Ra’Shaun, also have come back to give back. Ra’Shaun, who appeared in a tour of “The Book of Mormon,” pitched in with her alma mater Omaha Burke’s production of “Hairspray.” Johnson hosted OPA’s elementary Disney Musicals in Schools showcase. Johnson appeared in a national tour of “Hairspray.”
“We’re starting to see new generations of Nebraskans making it on Broadway and coming back,” said OPA’s Squires.
Morrow, who co-starred in the U.S. tour of “Hadestown,” twice crisscrossed the state teaching workshops. It’s how 2019 Kearney High grad Drew Sinnard first met him. Morrow came to rehearsals for a production of “Into the Woods.”
“We sat down on the stage waiting for his notes,” Sinnard recalled, “and he came out and said, ‘I have no notes for you, you all are incredible performers,’ and he started giving compliments about all the things we did right … for someone of that caliber to encourage us meant a lot to us.”
Sinnard, who represented Nebraska at the 2019 Jimmys in New York and now works for a regional theater in Memphis, Tennessee, credits Kearney theater teacher Kari Vyhlidal and figures like Morrow for helping prepare him for a theater career. Like Follette, he said the experience at the Jimmy Awards proved life changing.
“I walked out of there and I was like, I did it, I made it. I’m just a small town boy who got to go to the best place on Earth because of people in Nebraska.”
Nebraska’s Broadway alums say the state has a disproportionately deep pool of performers.
“The kids are getting better and better and better,” Morrow said.
And there appears to be high demand and interest – a reality reflected by the construction of the new Tenaska Center for Arts Engagement next door to the Holland Performing Arts Center.
Slated to open in 2027, the center will resolve a space issue that forces students to sometimes train, rehearse, perform in lobbies and under stairwells at the Holland.
“People want to connect to our touring productions, the actors are willing to do it, now we’ll have space to be able to broaden,” Squires said.
But France notes Nebraska’s offerings are still sporadic compared to larger cities. Programs like UNO’s summer academy and NHSTA attempt to bridge that gap and level the playing field by engaging Broadway native sons and daughters.
“To have them come back to teach us means a lot to us,” Sinnard said, “because it brings Broadway to us, which is extremely valuable. You get the best advice you possibly could. It helps us get a little leg up on the professional world.”
