Fresh Face: Marcie Dodd
Age: “I’m 30. Yay! The big 3-0!”
Hometown: Yuba City, CA. “It’s a little farm town in Northern California.”
Currently: Making her Broadway debut as ultimate emerald diva Elphaba in the smash hit Wicked.
Home on the Range: Before she played The Green Girl, Dodd was a green girl. “My dad is an agricultural consultant. I grew up on a small ranch—we had a horse, four chickens, a deer and a big pond in the back yard.” The third of four children, Dodd began singing in church at age three with her siblings and mother, a piano teacher. “We had four-part harmony: soprano, alto, tenor and bass,” she says of herself, her sister and two brothers. “In our hometown, the big joke was that we were The Von Dodd Family Singers.” Despite the harmonious home front and a place in the school choir, Dodd longed for championship trophies more than the spotlight. “I was a jock! I was determined to get as many varsity letters as I could. Volleyball, basketball, softball, whatever.” The multitalented Dodd even scored softball and music scholarships to Bethany College in Santa Cruz, continuing to play ball after enrolling as a music major.
The Accidental Princess: Two years into college, Dodd abandoned softball. “I found out I’m not a good enough pitcher, so I held on to the music scholarship and kept going.” Passionate about teaching, she transferred from Bethany “it was a bible school and I wasn’t looking to be a pastor!” to Azusa Pacific University, joining its acclaimed choir and graduating in 2001. Dodd found herself floundering in a post-graduation haze, however. “You’re like, I have a degree—now what do I do with my life?” At a friend’s urging, she headed to Disneyland to audition for a seasonal Christmas caroling gig, though things didn’t go as planned. “I ended up going to a character audition by accident, and they hired me as a singing princess!” Dodd hails the job—which included stints as Belle and Snow White—as the best practice an actor can get. “You’re doing six shows a day in 110 degree heat in front of screaming kids, and you have to be in character all the time. Anything from there just gets easier.”
What Happens in Vegas: Dodd worked at Disney for three years, meeting her husband of two years, actor Colin Follenweider, in the process. “He was a stunt pirate in our Peter Pan show. When I ended up playing Mary Poppins, he was recast as a chimney sweep. I’d flirt with him during [performances]. And here we are, six years later!” Dodd broke away from Disney when she nabbed the role of Sandy in a regional production of Grease. An understudy job in the Queen tribute show We Will Rock You at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel followed. “I was trained as a coloratura to sing all the lyrical stuff. So I learned from [that cast] how to belt. I loved it! We wore bustiers and cut-up leggings. No more Disney princess ‘sunburst arms!’” Dodd also had a stint in the Vegas cast of Hairspray, understudying Amber while continuing to go on auditions—including one for the L.A. cast of a new Broadway show titled Wicked.
Something Wicked This Way Comes: Joining the Wicked tour’s ensemble, Dodd danced through life while understudying leading ladies Elphaba and Nessarose. A year later, the actress was spent. She explained her feelings—“Dancing is fun, but I’m a singer”—to the producers, emphasizing that she would be open to other roles in the future. A few months later, she was asked to play Nessarose in the Los Angeles company. “I was like, ‘I’ll sit in the [wheel]chair! That’s the complete opposite of dancing!’” After six months, Dodd was tapped again, this time as the stand-by for the Green Girl herself. She calls her first time “Defying Gravity” in full make-up on the L.A. stage overwhelming. “You have the smoke and the lights and the orchestra, and you just feel that swell externally and internally,” she says. “It’s an exhilarating moment.”
New York, New York: Just shy of her one-year anniversary in the L.A. cast, Dodd got the call to play Elphaba on Broadway. “My agent said, ‘You’re not going back [to the L.A. show].’ And I thought, ‘OK, that’s it.’ Then she told me why! Now I’m sitting in my New York apartment and I still haven’t fully captured what’s happening.” While her L.A.-based husband plans visits, Dodd is adapting to city life “I got on the red subway train, went to Lincoln Center and got on the right train home. I was very proud of myself” while getting to know fellow Wicked newcomers Alli Mauzey Glinda, Kevin Kern Fiyero and Brynn O’Malley Nessarose. And she’s still pinching herself: “Broadway always felt so far away," this California girl says. "To be able to share the Gershwin stage, in a role that some of the best women [actors] have played? I’m like, ‘Really? Me?’”
