2 weeks Ago By Hannah Jackson
For anyone out there who doubts the power of manifestation, Lizzy McAlpine may just make you reconsider your stance. In 2021, the singer-songwriter tweeted at her favorite Broadway star, “in case u guys were wondering my goal in life is to sing with @JeremyMJordan.” (Jordan, for his part, responded, “I’m in.
”) This spring, she’s doing just that. The 25-year-old singer-songwriter—who first found fame with intensely personal, social media–friendly songs like “ Ceilings ” and “ Pushing It Down and Praying ”—is currently starring opposite Jordan in a new production of Floyd Collins at Lincoln Center Theater, marking her Broadway debut. Days ahead of the show’s opening night on Monday, McAlpine meets me for chamomile tea at a midtown hotel.
“I am having the best time of my life,” she says with a giggle, her large green eyes widening. During her senior year of high school, McAlpine applied to college not for music, but acting. “I was really shy in middle school, and even the beginning of high school,” she explains.
“It took me a while to come out of my shell, and theater helped me with that so much.” Yet she ended up at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she would write her first album, Give Me a Minute , and meet Philip Etherington, who produced her first two. “When I got into Berklee, I thought I might’ve made the wrong decision, but I stuck with it,” McAlpine says.
“I think about this all the time. I don’t know where I would be if I hadn’t gone.” But now, with a third record—2024’s Older —under her belt, McAlpine, who once starred as Penny Pingleton in her high school production of Hairspray , is circling back to her first love.
Written by Adam Guettel and Tina Landau (the latter of whom also directs), Floyd Collins reimagines the true story of a man, Floyd Collins, who died after becoming trapped in a cave in the winter of 1925. In her role as Floyd’s doting sister, Nellie, who has recently returned from a mental institution when the show begins, McAlpine has come to see her lack of formal acting experience as a boon. “I think one of the reasons why this show worked so perfectly for me—and one of the reasons why I got cast—was because I don’t have acting training.
My voice is not really the typical Broadway belter or classic voice. It’s more folky and intimate, and I think that lent itself well to the score and the character,” she says. “Some people have something to say about that, but I think that’s part of why this character called to me—because I bring something different that’s not normally seen on the Broadway stage.
” McAlpine is alluding to the stray criticisms of her performance that trickled in after previews began in late March. “I foolishly looked at the Reddit sub, which was not a good idea,” she says. “But, honestly, I think it’s just par for the course with this character and this show.
This show is so divisive. You either love it or you hate it.” (Also, for what it’s worth, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have both praised her turn, with the WSJ calling McAlpine’s a “remarkable Broadway debut.
” ) Still, the comments stung. “There were a couple of days there where I was really in my head, doubting myself,” she says. “I was only thinking about how people were perceiving me, and how every time I got on stage I was opening myself up to criticism, which was terrifying.
” One would imagine, I offer, that performing her own deeply personal songs onstage can feel similarly vulnerable. “When I released Older , I was looking online. People were like, ‘This is boring, we wanted Five Seconds Flat 2.
0’— the things that I was expecting people to say,” she replies. “With that it was like, okay, I know that what I’m doing and the music that I’m making is good, and I know that I’m true to myself. I’ve been doing it for so long and I feel so confident in that area, so it didn’t really affect me as much as this did.
” In a funny way, the feedback has only made McAlpine feel closer to Nellie. From the start of rehearsals, she says that she approached the character—whom she considers merely “different”—“in an open-hearted way. I just wanted to make sure that she stayed true to herself.
” She adds: “Her arc in the show is being misunderstood, and I felt like I was being misunderstood.” But in spite of that—or perhaps because of it—McAlpine is learning to trust her instincts as a performer, to trust her intuition. “From the first preview to now, I feel like I’ve grown so much.
Also, I’ve stopped looking at that stuff [online],” she says. “I still have doubts and I get self-conscious. I’m not totally confident in it yet, but I’m getting there.
..I’m getting there.
”.
