Tony First-Timers: Spamalot’s Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer Is Thrilled to Be Invited to the 'Shmony' Party

The Broadway revival of Spamalot played its final performance on April 7, but Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer’s final performance as Lady of the Lake is still to be determined. Visit Kritzer’s Instagram page and you’ll find her in full regalia acting out the “farewell tour” of musical theater’s water-logged diva. She saunters through the streets of Midtown, visits her old Broadway haunts and does her best to track down any “Shmony” voter she can sniff out. After all, who in this world covets a “Shmony” more than Lady of the Lake?

Kritzer’s mythical alter ego is gunning for that trophy, but Kritzer herself is satisfied as is: “I always said, I just want to be invited to the party,” she tells Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek on The Broadway Show. “Winning is great, but getting that pin was really meaningful. Really, really meaningful.”

She’s referring to the pin every nominee gets as the certified keepsake of their Tony season—a tangible affirmation of a job well done that she’s learned not to expect or rely on in this fickle industry. “I've been there before where I was hoping, and then it didn't happen,” she says. Her standout comic performance as Delia Deetz in the 2019 musical Beetlejuice was the last role to bring her teasingly close to a nomination. “I didn't want to be disappointed.”

And why rustle up feelings of disappointment in a season that wasn’t even on the bingo card? “I never expected Spamalot to happen, period,” she says. “Spamalot wasn't a dream role. Lady of the Lake wasn't something that I had aspired to do. I never thought that it was a part that I would do.” When the role first came her way, it was for a weeklong stint at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in May 2023. “And then we moved to Broadway,” she says, still a little astonished. “I didn't even have time to think.”

The role she never even considered ended up becoming a vehicle for everything that makes her one of Broadway’s most unique talents—including her extremely high belt. “I always say ‘thank you, Josh Rhodes,’ our director, for letting me be unhinged and crazy and do my kooky humor.” The production became notorious for its improvised tangents with audiences eagerly anticipating the fresh insanity ahead.

“I was able to come in and write material every night. That's what I love doing, and I was given the freedom to do that,” Kritzer says. One of her favorite bits was an ongoing fight with a non-existent harpist in the Spamalot orchestra who she claimed stole her trumpet-playing husband. Every night she’d threaten to jump into the pit yelling profanities borrowed from The Real Housewives of New Jersey. “I was told by the production that I was not allowed to jump into the pit on our last show for financial and liability reasons,” she explains. The hubbub of a S.N.O.B. gave a her a moment to sneak in some practice anyway. “Now because we're closed, I can say that I jumped into the pit.”

Every show was a wild risk, but one that usually paid off. “To hear an audience laugh at a small joke that I thought of at one-o'clock in the morning—I just love that. It makes people happy. I think it’s a joy and I've been that way since I was a kid.”

She quotes her mother, who passed last year just days before the start of Spamalot’s Kennedy Center run. "‘It doesn't matter where you go, Leslie. You were in that stroller and you were always making people laugh.’” Throwing in her own perspective, she adds, “I just used my imagination. That's what I do in rehearsal. It's just play. It's everything I did when I was a kid, just now grown up and I get paid.”

It’s only right that Spamalot, in its complete embrace of Kritzer’s knack for play and leaps of faith—both literal and figurative—should be the one that clinches her invite to the proverbial party (I’m sure she’s excited for the actual party as well). Because now, she gets to show up as the truest version of herself. As every friend and colleague who came to see Spamalot said to her: "’Finally, a show where you get to really do what you do.’"

“And that's the truth,” Kritzer remarks. “That's what Spamalot and the Lady of the Lake gave me. Freedom.”

GET TO KNOW THE TONY FIRST-TIMERS
Left to Right: COREY STOLL (Appropriate) | LESLIE RODRIGUEZ KRITZER (Spamalot) | JOSHUA BOONE (The Outsiders) | BETSY AIDEM (Prayer for the French Republic)

Watch the full episode of The Broadway Show with Tamsen Fadal highlighting all four of these first-time Tony nominees, and flip through the complete gallery of photos from our exclusive Broadway.com photo shoot.

The Broadway Show Credits: Directed by Zack R. Smith | Producers: Paul Wontorek and Beth Stevens | Senior Producers: Caitlin Moynihan and Lindsey Sullivan | Videographers: Shaun Copeland, Nick Shakra, and Ryan Windess
Photo Credits: Photography by Emilio Madrid | Photo Assistants: Alan Padilla and Cooper Hammel | Location: Corner Studio
Styling Credits: Styling: Jake Sokoloff | Wardrobe: Nardos dress, Inez shoes