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From l.: Sally Murphy, Shirley Verrett and Sandra Brown JOAN MARCUS/MARC BRYAN-BROWN

Carousel completes a circle for Shirley Verrett, who befriended composer Richard Rodgers early in her career

role hardly qualifies her for Julie Jordan consideration: In 1990's top Tony winner—the play that gave full dramatic due to John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath—she was Rose of Sharon, who figured so poignantly in the novel's last chapter.

But Sally's ride on this Carousel constitutes her own circular story: It's the first time she has sung a note in seven years. A voice performance major at Northwestern, she lost her way. "I never consciously gave up singing," she says. "I was living in Chicago, and I didn't have any plans on leaving, but I did know that I didn't want to just do revivals at the dinner theatres."

In time she signed on as a Steppenwolf company member and worked steadily; only recently did musical regrets start to surface. "Right before Carousel happened," she says, "I'd really made a commitment to go back to music. I had just been in Chicago doing a play, and I'd seen my old voice teacher. She and her husband own an Italian restaurant, and I went there with a good friend of mine who's also a singer. Everybody sang. My teacher sang. My friend sang. I, of course, didn't. I was too shy, and I thought, 'What am I doing? I love music, and I've missed it terribly.' Then, this came along. I thought about it, started singing for about an hour a day and was surprised to find the voice was still pretty much there. So I decided to audition—and I got the part."

Shirley Verrett has never been far removed from singing, amassing a classical career of great distinction, but until now Broadway has not been a real option. Carousel completes a circle of sorts she started back in her Juilliard days. Performing at various charity recitals, she caught the ear of Richard Rodgers's wife, Dorothy, who alerted her husband. At that time Rodgers was auditioning for No Strings, but he invited her to come in and sing for him.

"He said, 'My wife wants me to do something for you, and now that I've heard you, I want to do something for you. What can help you right away? Having money every week, right? What I can do is make you an understudy for Diahann Carroll. She will never get sick. You will never have to go on. And you'll just be earning money.' I asked him if I could think about it, but I knew the answer when I said that. A couple of days later, I told him, 'I've started on a route, and I have to go with it now—concerts, arias, oratorios, things like that—but thank you so much.' He said, 'Well, it's not all over.' What he did was to put a certain amount of money at my disposal at Juilliard for my photos and stuff. I said, 'That's all I need—just money to do that because I didn't want to ask my parents.' I only used $5,000. Never asked for another penny."

She and the Rodgerses remained friends. Verrett even sang at the composer's memorial service—and she can't get over the irony that when she finally opted for Broadway Richard Rodgers's favorite show was there waiting for her. "For me, this couldn't have happened in a better way. It's like I've come full circle. I told Mary Rodgers just the other day, 'I'll bet your dad and mom are happy I'm doing this.' "

And so, Carousel takes another turn.

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Transcription Notes:
[[image: three women in costume, singing]]