Scarlett Strallen’s starring roles include Mary Poppins on Broadway and playing Lady Macduff in Kenneth Branagh’s “Macbeth.” Courtesy photo

A star of Broadway and London’s West End, Olivier Award-nominated singer Scarlett Strallen returns to Maui on Sunday to perform with the Maui Pops Orchestra led by maestro Jim Durham for a concert of Christmas classics and holiday favorites.

“It’s the greatest,” said Strallen about singing Christmas songs. “It’s just joy.”

First performing with the Pops in 2019, she said, “I was very pregnant and had a wonderful time last time. I’m looking forward to being in Maui.”

“Winter Wonderland,” “Do You Hear What I Hear?”, “Cool Yule,” “Man With The Bag,” and “Carol of the Drum” are among the variety of festive chestnuts offered on Sunday.

“We have a lot of material,” said Strallen. “We have songs from Broadway musicals, and ‘Do You Hear What I Hear?’ which is one of my favorites. We have some (Michael) Bublé, a song from ‘Home Alone,’ which always makes me cry, and a (Bette) Midler tune.”

Born and raised in London, Strallen made her pops orchestra debut at the historic Royal Albert Hall in 2015. “I’m slightly grandiose in saying I feel like it’s my second home, because I’ve now been there many times,” she said. “The first time I actually performed there, I was about 6 for a Christmas show.”

A pops regular now, she especially loves “how collaborative it is, the feeling of so many people in a joint effort to make something beautiful, just for the sake of it. Just for people to sit and listen to loads of different instruments, a voice and hopefully beautiful material, songs, orchestra pieces. What could be better? It’s something beautiful, and we need that right now. Something that’s delightful for the sake of it.”

With starring roles including Mary Poppins on Broadway and the West End and playing Lady Macduff in Kenneth Branagh’s “Macbeth” in New York, Strallen was born into a theatrical family.

“It started with my grandmother, who ran a dancing school all the way until six months before she died last year at 94, and she was still teaching. My parents were in shows, and my aunt is a very famous performer in the U.K. since she was 7, and I’m one of four girls, and we’re all actresses. My first memory was seeing my father backstage at ‘Chess,’ the musical.”

Seeing her mother in a production of “Cats” when she was a 4-year-old set her on a path of singing and acting.

“That was a huge pivotal moment,” she recalled. “Oh, people play dress-up for a living. I’d quite like to do that — dress up as a cat. It was so immersive and weird and wonderful, with cats jumping out at you. It was a pivotal moment in my childhood of ‘this is something I can imagine doing with the rest of my life.'”

Strallen has received two Olivier Award nominations, in 2006 for her portrayal of Josephine in an adaptation of H.M.S. Pinafore and in 2012 for her role of Kathy in “Singin’ in the Rain.”

Her theater credits include the title role in “Nell Gwynn” at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater; Cunegonde in “Candide” in London; starring alongside Dame Judi Dench in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” with the Royal Shakespeare Company; and Cassie in the West End revival of “A Chorus Line.”

What was it like playing Mary Poppins? “It was the best, the dreamiest moment to be flying over the audience of a Broadway house,” she said. “I got to do it in Australia and England. Mary flew me all over the world.”

Also memorable was singing for Queen Elizabeth II.

“I got asked to sing by the King, who was the Prince at the time, for the Queen’s 90th birthday,” she explained. “I didn’t realize when I was asked how small and intimate the event was. It was literally just for the family and very closest friends. So we really got to see them letting their hair down, as it were. It was a very strange and wonderful gig. I was between the ventriloquist and the magician, and then the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain for the finale.”

Strallen entertained the royals with “a medley of love songs that they both loved, that one of their dear friends, Nigel Hess, who writes a lot of beautiful choral music, put together. And then we sang ‘You’re the Top,’ me and another singer, with different lyrics just for her.”

So did she get to shake hands with the Queen? “I did with every single one of them. Prince Philip said to me, ‘What are you doing after this? Are you resting?’ He was a character.”

The Maui Pops “Holiday Pops” concert will be at 3 p.m. Sunday in the Maui Arts & Cultural Center’s Castle Theater. Tickets are $37, $50, $70 and $80. Students 18 and under with an ID are half-price, except for $37 tickets.