Mallory Portnoy on Turning Down Her Oklahoma! Audition Twice, Gertie's Iconic Laugh & More

Mallory Portnoy has been cackling her way through Daniel Fish's reimagined Oklahoma! since its first production at Bard College's Summerscape in 2015. The actress, who plays the perpetually giggly Gertie Cummings, says that even back then, the cast was questioning what the darker, sexier, stripped-down production would become. "We were like, 'What is this crazy piece of theater and performance art?'" she told Ryan Lee Gilbert on a recent episode of #LiveAtFive. "I mean, it was always Oklahoma!, but we knew it wasn't for everyone. And every milestone we've hit, and the further we've gone, it has just been like the little engine that could."

Portnoy's Broadway debut in the lauded staging almost never happened, though, as she turned down a chance to audition twice. After getting her BFA in acting, she says she lost her verve for musical theater. "When I graduated, I was like, 'I'm actually not interested in this anymore,'" she explained. "I really wanted to go down a different path that had more film, TV, more comedy, more new plays." She had seen a production of Buried Child that Fish had directed, and while she called it "amazing," she couldn't see herself in something like it. "And I really hadn't been that into Rodgers and Hammerstein, I have to say," she said, beginning to laugh. "So, really nothing was appealing to me!" With the encouragement of the casting director, plus a few of her friends who were already attached to the show, Portnoy auditioned (while sick!) and got the part.

Though Gertie isn't a principal role, Portnoy's high-pitched laugh—at the same time grating and hilarious—ensures that audiences won't forget her character. The choice was born during her first audition for Fish, she said, assuring us her real laugh is much tamer. "I went in and I was like, 'I'm gonna laugh like Janice from Friends,'" she started. "I did it, and he was like, 'Can you do it again but just like much bigger?' I'm like, 'Yeah.' So, I never developed anything; it came out of me at the audition and it's been happening for four years ever since."

Be sure to catch Portnoy in the Tony-winning revival of Oklahoma!, now playing at the Circle in the Square Theatre.

Watch the full #LiveAtFive episode below!