Singer and actress performs with Maui Pops
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Having recently celebrated the best of Broadway at Carnegie Hall with the New York Pops, acclaimed singer/actress Nikki Renée Daniels will join the Maui Pops Orchestra at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center on Sunday for a "Broadway Pops" concert with her husband Jeff Kready.
Happy to escape New York's winter weather, the couple's repertoire will include a range of favorites. "I will be singing 'A Wonderful Guy' from 'South Pacific,' and a song from 'The Sound of Music,'" Daniels said. "We'll be singing songs from 'Company,' which is a show my husband and I were both in on Broadway, and songs from 'Phantom of the Opera.'"
Playing the role of Jenny in the Tony-winning Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical "Company," she briefly teamed with her husband in 2022, when he was cast as her onstage husband in the production.
"We got to play opposite each other as the married couple Jenny and David for almost a month in July last year," Daniels explained. "I was in the onstage cast and he was actually hired right after we opened because there were pockets of COVID outbreaks through Broadway and every show was hiring more understudies. It was very interesting to be a real life married couple playing a married couple on stage whose personalities are kind of nothing like our personalities."
Stepping aside from her Jenny role, Daniels made history in 2022, when she briefly became the first Black actor on Broadway to play the lead role of Bobbie in Sondheim's "Company." The lead character is usually a man named Bobby in traditional versions of the musical.
"I was a little surprised at how much notice I got for doing it," she said. "For me, I was an actor doing my job, and I understudied the role. This was my first Sondheim show on Broadway. To be the first Black person to get to play this iconic role on Broadway in a Sondheim show was really a big special moment for me. I was blown away at how much attention it got. The impact of it was just pretty huge."
Daniels credits include Nabulungi in "The Book of Mormon" on Broadway, Clara in Gershwin's "Porgy & Bess," as well as Fantine in "Les Miserables." She met her husband during the 2006 revival of "Les Miserables." She also played the role of Angelica Schuyler in the Chicago company production of "Hamilton."
Currently playing in Honolulu, "Hamilton" was revolutionary in casting non-white actors playing white characters. The show changed the landscape in terms of diversity and opened doors. "I was so excited to get to be in 'Hamilton,'" she said. "I'm such a fan of the show. I've lived in New York since 2001 and I noticed the difference once 'Hamilton' came out with such a big success. I feel like so many more doors opened for me, just in the auditions I was getting and then the roles that I was seeing people of color getting to play on Broadway that they hadn't been considered for before. Like in 'Company,' we had a pretty diverse cast. The last Sondheim revival that I had tried to get an audition for, I couldn't even get an audition and that was 2011. Then 'Hamilton' comes along in 2015, and all of a sudden, everyone wants to diversify more."
Among her plaudits, Time magazine praised her performance in a revival of Porgy & Bess: "The opera is all there in spirit. Starting with Nikki Renée Daniels' exquisite opening rendition of 'Summertime.'" And Variety praised her in "Ray Charles Live! A New Musical:" "Daniels sings like an angel and easily persuades she could be anyone's soulmate."
Often called on to sing at celebrations of Broadway including the recent "Black Broadway" show with The American Pops Orchestra, which will be screened on PBS in March, Daniels loves working with big orchestras.
"To get in front of a huge group of musicians, and to get to sing these classics is just so much fun. It's such a unique experience. As a singer first, I just love it."
The Maui Pops Orchestra's "Broadway Pops" concert will be at 3 p.m. Sunday at the MACC's Castle Theater. Tickets are $60, $50, $35, and $22 plus applicable fees, and half price for students 18 and under in the $60/$50/$35 price sections. Tickets are available online only at MauiArts.org.