Soap Opera Update
March 7, 1995
A Dream Come True

Not long after Catherine Hickland moved to New York and won the juicy role of Tess, the bold yet highly insecure temptress on LOVING, she was bitten by the Broadway bug. Never having done live theater before, she nevertheless became enchanted with the medium, and set her sights on someday being up on that stage herself. The determined Hickland immediately went about implementing her plan, working on her voice in daily sessions under the instruction of a noted opera coach. What happened to Hickland after that is like a fairy tale: When the Broadway producers met the beautiful actress and heard her sing, the rest was history. Now she's starring in the famous Broadway musical "Les Miserables" as Fantine, and sometimes has to pinch herself to make sure she's not dreaming!

Hickland said that although it was nerve-wracking, the night she opened in the show was one of the most remarkable of her life. "(The experience was) kind of other-worldly," she recalls. "Right before I went on, I was standing backstage, and I felt terrorized because there's always this feeling like you don't know what's going to happen. And I've never been in front of a live audience, so I was kind of scared about that. But then your feet hit the stage and you just kind of have no fear. You just plunge into it, and you don't remember much about the performance at all. I remember the second act and the curtain call, but the whole experience was kind of out-of-body, and yet the most incredible of my whole life. And I was sad in a way when it was over because it's like having your first child: You only have that experience once."

Hickland says that one of the biggest differences between doing live theater and doing a soap opera is having to constantly roll with the punches. "During the second show, I had a lot of technical things go wrong that I had to deal with; nothing too terrible, just little things like my locket broke," says the honey-voiced blonde. "But you deal as you go along. Once my feet hit the stage, my part is really like being shot out of a cannon, so ou don't really have time to think about anything except what you're doing. Doing a musical, the scariest thing is if you forget parts of your songs! The orchestra's still going and it's not like you can just stop, so it's always walking the tightrope. Thankfully, that hasn't happened to me yet!"

The talented actress, who is famous for taking on a number of projects at once, seems to be sailing through the juggling act of working on two shows at once. She explains, "I have a lot of energy, so so far it's been really great. It hasn't really affected my life too much, except that I'm not used to sleeping till noon on my days off, which I do now because I need it." Hickland reveals another reason behind her handline both LOVING and Broadway so effortlessly: She has an awesome support system, headed up by husband Michael E. Knight (Tad, ALL MY CHILDREN). "My husband is with me quite a bit," she says. "He picks me up every night, and comes and has dinner with me between shows." She adds with a laugh, "He saw the show three times in the first week!"

Hickland admits that even though she has energy to spare, being on Broadway provides probably some of the greatest challenges she's ever faced. "Just keeping up your stamina is hard. Doing eight shows-a-week and two on Wednesday and Saturday--and lasting!" she reveals. "Keeping up with the rest of the cast because they're enormously talented. Everyone in the cast has a fantastic talent, so you're always thinking, 'I have to be as good as they are. I have to keep up.' There's a lot of pressure you put on yourself, but I try not to do that too much. I just go to work and say, 'Hey, I'm going to do my best.' And nobody's complained yet, so I guess it's okay!"

For Catherine Hickland, living out her dream, feeling the Broadway stage beneath her feet, feels every bit as delicious as she'd hoped. "It's the most beautiful experience that I can say I've ever had in my life," she affirms. "I mean, really, reality is better than fantasy."