Dream role flows to Sierra

Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 21, 2007 at midnight

Text size

More Theater

More stories »

Before and after she was cast as Ariel in The Little Mermaid, Sierra Boggess was dreaming of the ocean.

Fortunately, she had a dream dictionary by her side, telling her that the ocean wasn't just a reference to her character, but a sign that she was going somewhere safe.

The Colorado native has kept a dream journal for years, and uses a dream dictionary to interpret the nighttime imaginings of her cast mates.

"I don't believe dreams predict the future, but I believe there are certain things in them that let us know we're on the right path," Boggess said this week in her dressing room at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, her wide-set eyes and open face betraying no irony.

Boggess has followed a path straight to the stage since graduating from George Washington High School in 2000. Now 25, she'll make her Broadway debut in The Little Mermaid, which will have its tryout in Denver, a happy coincidence for the show's creative team, which didn't know she grew up here.

"That is serendipity extraordinaire," says director Francesca Zambello. "She has an incandescent quality. She has all the things you expect of the character. And then, of course, the great voice. It's all about the voice. She falls in love with a face, he (Prince Eric) falls in love with a voice."

Boggess grew up in a musical house on the eastern edge of the Washington Park neighborhood. Her father, Mike, works for Saunders Construction and plays the guitar around the house. Her older sister, Summer, is a cellist in New York; younger sister, Allegra, is a pianist studying at the University of Colorado.

On a recent day off she took her co-star, Tituss Burgess, over to her parents' house, where Burgess played the piano and everyone sang.

"We're totally being Sebastian and Ariel right now," Boggess laughed. "We're totally in character, we're so cheesy."

The young Boggess already has had a charmed career. Upon graduating from Millikin University in Decatur, Ill., she had an agent waiting for her in New York. Two weeks after she arrived there, Boggess was cast in the musical Princesses at the Goodspeed Opera House, a Connecticut theater closely watched by Broadway professionals.

She's never had to wait tables or work a day job, although she spent three weeks as a hostess at Cafe Fiorello, just to keep busy between jobs.

"It's been pretty lucky," Boggess says. "After Princesses I had about a month off and I was down to zero dollars in my bank account. The day I was down to zero dollars, I found out an hour later that I got Les Miserables."

Boggess was playing Christine in the Las Vegas version of The Phantom of the Opera, right off the tour of Les Miserables. Her callback for the role was onstage at the Ambassador Theatre in New York.

"Oh my God, I'm on Broadway!" she thought.

She was offered the job before she got home.

"I started rehearsal April 24," she remembers, eyes cast upward at the memory. "Barbra Streisand's birthday. I love her."

From Phantom, Boggess flew to auditions for The Little Mermaid last fall. She saw signs everywhere that the role was for her: The fact that she was from Denver. The fact that Jodi Benson, the film voice for Ariel, graduated from the same university. And the fact that, since she was 7, Boggess had loved the movie.

"I have the movie fully memorized," she says, so much so that in the early days of rehearsal, she would occasionally spout a line from the film.

"This one really spoke to me," Boggess says of the role. "She's a strong woman, that's why I think people relate to her and the story."

"If only I had red hair, I know I could sing like that," Boggess recalls thinking as a child. "Last Saturday was our first time in costume and I put my wig on and I'm just trying not to cry."

She's not just making her Broadway debut, she's creating a role.

"It's wonderful, because I can put myself into it," Boggess says. "I can do my little Sierra nuances. I don't have to follow in someone else's footsteps. It's mine."

Ariel may belong to her, but thousands of little girls and women claim ownership as well.

"It's a huge responsibility, and I'm very aware of that. But I'm so supported. I am not doing this alone."

Meet Sierra Boggess: Ariel the mermaid

• Age: 25

• School days: Bromwell Elementary, Denver School of the Arts/Cole Middle School, George Washington High School

• Early drama teacher: Nancy Priest

• Oceanic performance: Playing a shark at Colorado's Ocean Journey

• Big career break: National tour of Les Miserables

• Bigger career break: Ariel in the Broadway production of The Little Mermaid

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News