The TonyAwards are tonight, and Bonnie Milligan is nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical. TimTeeman talked to the 'Kimberly Akimbo' star in May. Check out the interview here:
, and taught herself to belt in college, while training her voice. “It felt good. It’s always been instinctive. I grew up listening to divas of the ‘90s: Celine, Whitney, Mariah, and Reba. I would try and mimic these big voices. I grew up listening to the mixed-belt of Doris Day. To be able to belt feels nice but if I also sing in other styles—what is right for that song in the moment. It was a really special show to be part of. I will always cherish the beauty of it.
As for so many, Milligan’s life changed during the pandemic. Her father died in March 2020, just as society shut down. “We had to have a virtual funeral. I filmed my speech singing a song on the bathroom floor.” Milligan lived with her mother in Ohio for a period of time, “which was strange, in my mid-30s, having just lost one parent. I feared so much for her, I was clinging to that one other parent. Then my stepdad got cancer. He’s doing much better now. It felt really hard.
“For me, Deb is not a sociopath, she is not out there to be evil. She’s a flawed person who has done incredibly selfish things. In her mind, she is just getting by. I love Victoria Clark so much. I think Kim is her favorite person in the world. For a long time, she has been the only person who liked to have me around. What Deb is going through with Kim in the musical is that thing of an older person losing the adoration of little ones who idolized you.
It's “bittersweet” that Milligan’s father isn’t here to see her Broadway success. “My dad is pulling strings on the other side. I can just see him wheeling and dealing up there,” she said, smiling. Part of her grieving has been to “remember the joy, the complicated final days of someone, where you feel every emotion, every memory, every feeling,” which has informed how she responds to’s central storyline of someone determined to live out their dreams, however much time they have left.
“It’s great to have people who know you, who know the relationship I had with my dad and who were with me during the period of him dying that I can speak to about it,” Milligan told The Daily Beast. In response, she said, they told her, “This is a safe space, and your performance is because of all of that. He helped you create this complex human, who is a testament to it all.”
Over time, Deb has deepened, especially singing the final song, “Great Adventure,” which Milligan really feels the life-embracing spirit of. People respond with audible gasps to the show’s revelations, while one man’s extreme cackling led to the whole cast cracking up.
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