Betsy Morgan
Both photos courtesy of Betsy Morgan
If you're a theatre fan, you very well may have seen Betsy Morgan perform.
In addition to regional theatre roles around the country, she was the understudy for Ariel in The Little Mermaid on Broadway, as well as the standby for Anna in Lincoln Center Theatre's production of The King & I.
But most theatre fans probably know her best from her time playing Fantine in Les Misérables for both the 25th Anniversary National Tour and as an understudy in the Broadway production at the Imperial Theatre.
To listen to the interview with Betsy Morgan, click the play button below (or click here to open the audio player in a new tab/window).
Betsy Morgan is a supporter of The Actor's Fund.
If you'd like to donate, you can do so here, via their website.
Please note that interviewees select their own charity. Any charities mentioned or linked are neither vetted, nor endorsed, by the author or this site.
Mike Reflects
For you, the reader, this section probably seems like the easiest thing I do with these interviews. All I have to do is talk about something, anything, tangentially related to the interview. How hard could that be?
The truth is that it's actually extremely difficult.
This is probably my 10th+ draft—all starting from scratch, and all (others, I hope) ending with scrapping every word.
When it comes to my writing, I'm, among other things, a bit of a perfectionist. If a word, sentence, paragraph, or even an overarching theme, doesn't feel exactly right, I won't be comfortable with publication until it is. There's a reason this (and a few others) took so long.
One of the reasons this section is difficult is because I'm not big on opening up about personal stories or memories. I didn't get into interviewing to talk about myself—quite the opposite, in fact.
Sometimes, it feels...weird. Which means it doesn't feel exactly right. Which means it doesn't get published until it does.
When I started doing this section back at KTRM, I swore I'd be honest & open in it, at least with regard to the things I chose to share. A sort-of "mini blog", if you will.
And, in that spirit, I'm going to tell you that I have no idea why I told you the above, but I like the way it sounds, and it's 100% true, so I'm keeping it.
I'm sure you're probably expecting some sort of tie-in to the topic at hand, rather than just leaving it as a rant about writing this section & an easy-out.
If this were a high school homework assignment, I'd probably leave it there.
Some of my papers back then were works of pure beauty—nobody can tell me that a paper about how a certain topic can't be easily written about (with properly cited sources, no less) doesn't constitute a paper about that topic.
But this isn't high school. And I feel like you deserve better, as does Betsy Morgan.
Before my phone interview with the legendary Tim Conway back at KTRM, I spent the time leading up to it pacing around the halls adjacent to KTRM. "Nervous" would've been a massive understatement.
In truth, that's my first memory when I think back to my interview with Betsy Morgan, because my interview with Betsy Morgan was the first interview since that gave me that same feeling to the same degree.
My second memory of this interview is how quickly that feeling evaporated after she & I started talking.
I've interviewed actors who were predominately stage-based before, but never to this extent. This was the first chance I got to really delve into that side of acting. Some of it I already knew. Some of it, I learned.
Once my nerves quickly subsided, this was a really fun (and, I think, really great) interview.