​Eighteen years after taking on Elphaba in “Wicked” and 16 years after playing Maureen in “Rent,” Eden Espinosa is back on the Great White Way in another epic leading role. In “Lempicka,” she portrays the largely forgotten Art Deco portraitist Tamara de Lempicka, who redefined women’s roles in the art world, both as painter and subject. Espinosa brings Carson Kreitzer and Matt Gould’s musical—which opened in April and is set to close on May 19—to breathtaking life in one of the most powerful performances of the year.
Do you have any pre- or post-show rituals for “Lempicka”?
I get to the theater fairly early so that I can warm up in the shower. I do a little bit of stretching; my body feels the effects when I don’t. Tamara is such an emotional lift for me that I like completely washing my face at the theater [after the show]. Usually, I would wait till I get home to take off my makeup, but this is a way for me to leave her there.
What have you learned from playing Lempicka?
There are a lot of things that aren’t necessarily warm or likable about Tamara all the time—the decisions that she’s had to make to survive and to get ahead or to feed her family. This role at this time is very much a mirror to where I need to expand and where I need to grow. I have the tendency to shrink sometimes or apologize or downplay. She is, in many moments, reaching her hand out to me, like: “Come on. Let’s keep going. Let’s fill up the space. Let’s not apologize.”
How much of your portrayal is based on the real-life artist, and how much comes from the character you’ve created?
The majority of her is a character that I’ve created based on the world that we have created. What was most important to me was capturing the spirit and the essence of her determination. Tamara, by design, was very calculated in what she told people; [she told] versions of the truth. We just found out that she was older than she said. Whether she was Jewish, whether she was queer, where she was from…what was most important to me was capturing the essence of her spirit—the drive, ambition, and business mind that she had, and also [her] foresight to think three steps ahead.
Eden Espinosa in “Lempicka” Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
Have you ever experienced something that felt like a failure in the moment but later proved to be a gift?
I haven’t been on Broadway in 16 years. That could be looked at as a “failure.” But the work I have been involved in since then has prepared me for this moment. New works that aren’t necessarily commercially viable have taught me to connect to pieces that are polarizing. Without that experience, I don’t know if I would have been able to fully stand with pride in [“Lempicka”], despite what anyone says.
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned in your professional journey?
Choose yourself, always. You are your greatest love. You are your best friend. You are your family. We always know our intuition is there; and when we’re aligned and tapped into it, that is our greatest asset and our biggest superpower. I am mending the relationship with myself in that way right now, at 46, and it’s pretty profound. Learn how to nurture [your] relationship with yourself.
You are largely self-taught as a singer. What advice would you give to an aspiring performer who doesn’t have access to traditional coaching?
Don’t question your gifts. I didn’t grow up training, but I’ve taken voice lessons over the years. We’re all given natural gifts, and the minute that somebody starts analyzing [their gift] and questioning it, then you start going, “Wait, I don’t know how I do that!”
I went through a long period of time [when] I didn’t feel like my instrument was my own anymore because I was just analyzing it so much, and [I was] worried about the product and the output of the execution. I feel like I’m just now getting over that. I have a new voice teacher who really knows my instrument. There are singularities to each of us that are so beautiful, and they need to be celebrated instead of compared.
This story originally appeared in the May 16 issue of Backstage Magazine.