Caissie Levy on How She Balanced Caroline, Or Change with Frozen and the 'Lovely Part of this Awful Time'

Caissie Levy is focusing on the positive. After playing ice queen Elsa in Frozen for almost three years and going right into rehearsals for the Roundabout Theater Company's revival of Caroline, Or Change, Levy is soaking up the time with her husband, David Reiser, and son, four-year-old Izaiah. "We're in my childhood home in Canada," Levy said to Paul Wontorek in a recent episode of Broadway.com's #LiveatFive: Home Edition. "I think about it a lot that I started the lab for Frozen right after Izaiah turned one and by the time Patti [Murin] and I closed in February, we'd been doing it for almost three years. For Izaiah's entire life, I've been Elsa. Now he's not used to us being home all the time because normally I'm gone every night doing a show and my husband is gone half the week teaching at a university in Jersey. He went from barely seeing us to seeing us all the time, which has been the lovely part of this awful time."

After saying farewell to Arendelle, Levy immediately went into full-time tech and rehearsal for Caroline, Or Change after doing two weeks of double duty. "Doing double duty is never easy and it happened out of sheer will," she said. "I learned all of my Caroline score in advance of the first rehearsal because I'm a bit of a psycho, but it helps with vocal fatigue later on. It's complicated and difficult music to get through. I wasn't going to leave Frozen early because Patti [Murin] and I wanted to end together. There were a lot of naps and some tears. It wasn't fully successful either, it wasn't flawless. That's one thing that Elsa really taught me; perfect doesn't exist. You have to figure out a way to move through it when it's not perfect, and I leaned on that quite a bit during that crazy time."

Levy was ready for audiences to see her take on Rose Stopnick Gellman, a role completely different than anything she's done before. "It's such a 180 from Elsa," she said. "[Caroline, Or Change] a much more serious and meaty show in a lot of ways. It's very racially and politically charged and what's really cool about this production is they already did this beautiful version of it in London, but they weren't trying to completely replicate it. We got to find our way in the rehearsal room. I really enjoyed the rehearsal process, but I found it scary at times. It was a very vulnerable place to be after three years of Elsa and really knowing what I'm doing. That's why we do what we do, right?"

Caroline, Or Change was getting ready for its invited dress rehearsal before the first preview when it was announced that Broadway would close its doors due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. "We were very ready for our audience, and it was very heartbreaking," Levy said. "We were stopped mid-rehearsal and told the news. But, now the plan now is to come back in September. Our producers are so committed to the show and our set is just hanging out at the theater right now. Hopefully, we'll be unlocking those doors and getting back on stage soon." We'll be hanging on to that hope, too!

Watch the full interview below to see Levy talk about how she found out Patti Murin is pregnant and more!