Joaquina Kalukango Pours Everything Into The Heart

Joaquina Kalukango knows how to make an audience feel everything. In The Heart, the Tony winner channels that emotional openness into Marianne Lamar, a mother confronting an unimaginable loss. Speaking with Broadway.com Managing Editor Beth Stevens, Kalukango traces her connection to the musical to something deeply personal. “I think initially what attracted me was I'm a mother, and so I knew that I was moved by reading the script.” That recognition became her entry point into a story about grief, generosity and the lives we hold in one another’s hands.

Unfolding over 24 hours, the 90-minute off-Broadway musical follows a young surfer whose life is cut short and a stranger whose life can be saved through organ donation. For Kalukango, playing the surfer’s mother means exploring questions without easy answers. “It's interesting, because Marianne is not a religious person,” she says. “So to play a character that is finding what that means, what that looks like, the afterlife for her child, I think is really beautiful to reckon with on a stage.” Marianne’s uncertainty gives the actress room to explore a deeply individual response to loss.

Under Tony winner Christopher Ashley’s direction, the production’s momentum leaves little opportunity to step outside that emotional landscape. “Once we start, we're on this train and you never get off,” Kalukango says. “We're on the stage the entire time and we get to witness this show. So we're always connected in that way.” For the nine-person company, bearing witness becomes another way of telling the story together.

That intensity also requires Kalukango to navigate the relationship between feeling and vocal control. “I'm a very instinctual actor and sometimes I'm not as successful. Sometimes the emotions run out, you know, and the voice is what it is,” she says. “Or sometimes it is technical, but I just go with whatever my heart feels in that moment. And hopefully it'll connect.” Alongside that instinct, she credits her voice teacher and post-performance cool downs with helping her recover before the next show.

At home, her 10-year-old son provides a welcome change of scene. “You walk in the door and it's a completely different world and I wouldn't change it for anything,” she says. “Having that, he's my saving grace for sure. I don't bring any of that home because it's light and joy and beauty.” Homework and video games bring her back to the everyday pleasures that make the musical’s stakes so meaningful.

Family also figures into Kalukango’s friendship with Danielle Brooks, her classmate at Juilliard who she's known since the age of 17. Brooks and her fellow The Color Purple co-star, Cynthia Erivo, presented Kalukango with her Tony Award for Paradise Square in 2022. “We're both godmothers to each other's children,” Kalukango says of Brooks. “Having somebody who you've built this life with, who you've seen at all levels, succeed and do the thing you very much love to do is just beautiful.”

For all her emotionally demanding roles, Kalukango would happily welcome an assignment with a little less anguish. “I would like to be in a romantic comedy,” she says. “I would like to be funny. You know what I mean? I would like to be Shrek.” A lighter chapter may still await an actress who clearly has more sides to share. Or should we say layers to peel back?

For now, The Heart offers something beyond heartbreak. Kalukango sees its central act of generosity as an expression of how profoundly people depend on one another. “We need each other. We literally need each other to live. And I think it's a beautiful way to say that.” For an actress willing to follow her feelings wherever they lead, that sense of connection is the destination.

Watch the interview below!

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