An Overnight Sensation
In the blink of an eye, Kyra Belle Johnson went from high school to starring in the national tour of “Mamma Mia!”
A few months ago Kyra Belle Johnson graduated from Palos Verdes High School and, guess what? she’s already touring the country as one of the leads in the popular musical “Mamma Mia!” Better yet, we can see her onstage for ourselves when the company performs January 26-31 at the Pantages Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.
Kyra Belle has lived in the same Rolling Hills home her entire life, except that at the moment she’s living out of a suitcase in Anchorage, Alaska, before jetting to Hawaii for a few days. But we’ll get to that later.
So how did it all begin?
This is how it began
“The first show I remember seeing was ‘Oliver!’ and it was at the Norris Theatre,” says Kyra Belle, sitting across from me in a pastry shop on a dreary afternoon. “I remember seeing it because there were kids onstage and they were my age and a little bit older.”
So she turned to her mother and asked what those kids were doing up there. Her mother’s response was concise: They’re in the show. “And I’m thinking, well, I want to do that. Why can’t I be up there doing that?”
Kyra Belle was about eight years old at the time and she was soon enrolled in dance classes. The next show that came up was “High School Musical,” and Kyra Belle auditioned for it. Well, no cigar, but her sister, Kendyl, who is two years older, also auditioned and got in. Next up was “Grease,” and Kyra Belle tried out for that one, too. Again, she wasn’t selected; again, her sister was.
A few years later Kendyl went off to play water polo, leaving Kyra Belle as the only one in her family with an active passion for the performing arts.
All right, she was 0 for 2, but so what?
“You know,” she says, “it was a persistence thing. I’m a persistence kid, I don’t really stop; that’s just who I am.”
And so Kyra Belle auditioned for “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” and ended up with a small role. However, at the time it didn’t matter how little the part was because, she says, “I was so happy. I was like, ‘I’m in a show! Oh my gosh, I’m in a show!’”
To this day, she remembers everything about it.
“Stepping on stage, I had more fun doing that than I ever had doing anything else.”
Kyra Belle’s been in a lot of shows since then, but up to now they’ve all been musicals such as “Annie,” “Legally Blonde,” and “Thoroughly Modern Millie.” Her knowledge of theater, straight drama in particular, has room for growth, but let’s give her a few more years, okay?
From Fiona to Sophie
When Kyra Belle Johnson was a junior in high school she was cast as Princess Fiona in “Shrek: The Musical.” It’s still one of her favorite roles: “Fiona is just hilarious and she’s strong, and that’s the type of character that I like to play.”
PV High has been involved in a program, or competition, that might loosely be compared to the Tony Awards, but for high school theater. It’s called the JRAYs, the John Raitt Awards for Youth, and the Fullerton Civic Light Opera Music Theatre (FCLO) hosts it each year in the historic Plummer Auditorium, in Fullerton. About 20 high schools participate, including Mira Costa in Manhattan Beach. A panel of judges weighs in on everything from lighting and sound to acting and choreography. During the awards presentation on May 24, 2014, Kyra Belle was named Best Actress.
Along with Eli Labinger, who was named Best Actor, Kyra Belle was flown to New York, to the Broadway Artists Alliance, where she participated in workshops with Broadway theater people. “At the end of the week,” she says, “they had a showcase in front of casting directors and agents.”
That took place in July of 2014. And then? Nothing.
Until January of last year, that is, when she received an email from someone at Joy Dewing Casting, the people finding actors for the “Mamma Mia!” tour. There was going to be an audition in March, and they wanted Kyra Belle to come and try out.
Who wouldn’t jump at that opportunity? Well, Kyra Belle almost didn’t. When the day arrived she had second thoughts (“Nothing’s gonna happen”) but her mother pressed her: Just try. It’s your first professional audition for anything; just get out there and see what you can do.
Or words to that effect.
Kyra Belle cleared the first hurdle: The company (Work Light Productions) was definitely interested. But they had other concerns and questions: Would she be 18 by September? Yes. And was she mature enough to be on the road, away from home and parents?
The concern for her well-being was reassuring, and so Kyra Belle knew what to expect before signing on with the company.
The “Mamma Mia!” tour got underway in October, and Kyra Belle says they’ve done about 30 shows thus far, in maybe a dozen towns, most of them on the East Coast, but with a couple in Texas, one in Kansas, and a couple more in Florida. She might see a little of the town or city if the show is up for more than a day or two, and mentions a zoo in Abilene that had lions, giraffes, and a white Bengal tiger.
Singing for her supper
“Mamma Mia!” threads together numerous pop songs by the ‘70s Swedish group ABBA (“Dancing Queen,” “Waterloo,” “Fernando”), with a storyline that focuses on a young woman named Sophie (Kyra Belle) who’s about to be married. She’s the daughter of a single mom, Donna, and they live on a Greek island. Sophie has never known her father, but wouldn’t it be just super if he attended her wedding and walked her down the aisle?
Yes, except that even her mother doesn’t know the identity of Sophie’s father because she slept with three different men during the months before Sophie was born. (In case you’re wondering, no one mentions DNA testing)
Kyra Belle says she connects with the character of Sophie even though Sophie is 20 instead of Kyra’s 18.
“I like to relate Sophie to Lucy from ‘I Love Lucy,’” she adds, “because Sophie comes up with this plan where, You know what? I think it’d be a great idea to invite these three random men that I’ve never met before. I don’t even know if they’re real, but they’re in my mom’s diary so they must be. Let’s invite them for a weekend to my wedding, and let’s see how it goes. Then I’ll just know my dad when I see him.”
Except that she doesn’t, and she finds she’s made a muddle of things.
Sophie’s just a human being, Kyra Belle says, albeit with good intentions. “She’s not some perfect girl who’s getting married to this really hot guy and everything’s going her way. She’s just like, oh, I want my dad! She’s totally flawed, and she makes mistake after mistake in the show, but she’s also really sure about her choices.”
What Kyra Belle also appreciates about her character is that Sophie doesn’t just sit back and sulk, but tries to get up and fix whatever’s wrong. And while she may not be the central figure in the show, that honor falls to her mother, Donna, “it’s Sophie’s charisma and her strength that pushes the show forward. I really admire that about her character, and I love tapping into that.”
“Break a leg” is an old theater term that means go out there and do your darned best, and good luck to you while you’re at it. But sometimes actors break a leg in a more physical sense or, failing that, twist an ankle or come down with an exotic fever, and so that’s why there are two understudies for every role in this production of “Mamma Mia!”
“If anything goes wrong,” Kyra Belle says, “someone’s ready to be there.”
In her case, she’s appeared in every show thus far. She’s been asked if she gets along with her understudies or if she thinks they might try and do her in. Kyra Belle laughs “Those two girls are some of my best friends in the cast.”
Not only that, she’ll be going to Hawaii with them after the Anchorage performances so they can work on their real tans. Since “Mamma Mia!” takes place in the Mediterranean everyone is supposed to look like they’ve soaked in a few rays, intentionally or otherwise.
Kyra Belle is thankful that her first experience of being out on the road, and doing show after show after show, is with a musical where her character doesn’t need to scream or cry hysterically several times a week. That could be quite draining.
Indeed, she says, “Pretty much every time you walk off stage you’re smiling because that’s what your character’s just been doing, and especially after the finale (when) we hit three of the most (popular) ABBA songs and the crowd, every single night, is up on their feet and dancing. You see people singing the lyrics back to you and waving their arms in the air, and you just walk off so happy and proud of the show.”
The “Mamma Mia!” national tour ends in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 12, after which Kyra will have time to catch her breath. And after that? “I really don’t know,” she replies, and then adds with a playful laugh: “I just know in general my river is streaming towards performing.” In the meantime, let’s not forget, she’ll be shining like the star she is from Jan. 26-31 at the Pantages Theatre. ER
