Lizzy McAlpine on navigating her rising music career and Broadway debut: "It's been such a dream of mine for so long"
Singer-songwriter Lizzy McAlpine has broken through the music industry as a self-made, platinum-selling pop star, but she reveals Broadway was her first love. Now, she has the opportunity to fulfill her lifelong dream.
McAlpine is making her Broadway debut in the musical "Floyd Collins," playing the sister to the title character, a cave explorer trapped underground in 1925.
"It's just so crazy. It's been such a dream of mine for so long," she said.
McAlpine saw her first Broadway show, "Beauty and the Beast," when she was 8 years old.
"My grandma would take me and my sibling to see a Broadway show every year and every time I would see something, I would just be like, 'I wanna be a part of that, like I wanna be up there.' … It's just a special art form," she said.
Fulfilling her Broadway dream
Now 25 years old, McAlpine last did theater in high school, but trusted her instincts for this role.
"I didn't want to overthink it because I feel like the character is so open and childlike," she said.
McAlpine auditioned for "Floyd Collins" last fall. Online she confessed her anxieties and shared her journey about achieving her goal.
"I don't wanna just do things that will make me more famous because I don't care about that at all," McAlpine said. "I really only care about making art that resonates with people and doing cool things and this is a very cool thing, this show."
She's working alongside Jeremy Jordan, who plays the lead in "Floyd Collins." Back in 2021, McAlpine tweeted, "in case u guys were wondering my goal in life is to sing with @jeremymjordan."
On their first day of rehearsal, McAlpine was prepared to show Jordan the post to see if he remembered, until he asked her first.
"He was like, 'wait, I have to show you something' and he pulled up the tweet and he was like, 'do you remember doing this?' … And then he read it out loud to everyone in the room and … it was sweet."
Music career takes off
Prior to her Broadway debut, McAlpine went to Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music. She was 20 years old and working on her first album when her father, Mark McAlpine, died.
"It was kind of crazy. It was March 13th of 2020, which is like … the day that Berklee shut down school, because of COVID."
McAlpine stayed with her aunt in New Hampshire. It's then when she started posting covers of songs on Instagram and TikTok.
"That's when my career kind of started to bloom and it was a crazy time because the juxtaposition of like seeing this thing that I've always wanted come to fruition and then also like dealing with the death of my father, was so crazy," she said.
On each of McAlpine's three albums, the 13th track is a song about her father. McAlpine said the grief and healing from losing him prove she can get through anything.
"It kind of showed me who I am," she said.
While McAlpine's music first found an audience on YouTube, her career really took off when "Ceilings," a song from her second album, went viral on TikTok.
"Everything was like, kind of in a whirlwind."
As for the future, she's keeping all options open, but admitted she feels at home on Broadway.
"This came into my life at the most perfect time it ever could have."
