Interview: Kristine Nielsen Talks Summers in Cotuit and Appearing in a Broadway SMASH

Kristine Nielsen has made her name on Broadway playing roles in all kinds of comedies and dramas, but only a very few musicals. She’s changing that up this season, however, portraying Susan Proctor, an Actors’ Studio teacher and confidante to Ivy Lynn, a Broadway star preparing to play Marilyn Monroe, in the new musical comedy “Smash,” at New York’s Imperial Theatre.

“It’s so unusual for me to be doing a show like this,” explained Nielsen by telephone from her home in New York recently. “I’ve been in other musicals, but none directed by someone as fabulously talented and uncompromising as Susan Stroman. It’s very exciting to work with her.”

Inspired by the NBC-TV series of the same name, “Smash,” in addition to being directed by five-time Tony Award winner Stroman (“The Producers,” “The Scottsboro Boys,” “Crazy for You”) features a score by Tony, Emmy, and two-time Grammy winners Marc Shaiman and Todd Wittman (“Some Like It Hot,” “Hairspray”), who wrote over two dozen songs for the television show, many of which are in the musical along with new material they have written for the stage.

The musical comedy about the backstage drama leading to opening night of “Bombshell,” a musical about Marilyn Monroe, also features a book by four-time Tony nominee Rick Elice (“Water for Elephants,” “Jersey Boys”) and Tony winner Bob Martin (“The Prom,” “The Drowsy Chaperone”), and choreography by Emmy and Tony Award nominee Joshua Bergasse.

“I’m not a singer, but in my fourth year at Northwestern, my acting teacher Bud Beyer wanted it all to be about comedy singing. I think I did ‘Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better’ from ‘Annie Get Your Gun,’ when everyone else was doing Sondheim.

“These days, I like musicals where I get to do bits like the ones Imogene Coca did in the original production of ‘On the Twentieth Century.’ I actually auditioned for the same role in the 2015 revival of that show, but the part ended up going to Mary Louise Wilson, who was terrific,” recalls Nielsen. “I like roles like that, though, because I like finding a character’s idiosyncrasies.”

In “Smash,” Nielsen is doing just that in a role inspired by the second wife of Actors’ Studio founder Lee Strasberg, mother of actors John and Susan Strasberg, and mentor to Monroe.

“Susan Proctor looks like Paula Strasberg. And she also looks like a bug standing next to Ivy Lynn. I wanted her to also look scholarly, though, and our Costume Designer Alejo Vietti achieved that and everything else about Susan’s all-black attire just perfectly,” says the performer. “We thought about giving her black sunglasses and we could have gone further, too, but I wanted the audience to be able to see her.”

While Vietti was designing Susan’s dour dresses and babushkas, another of the creatives was also helping Nielsen to see her character.

“While Susan’s look was being developed, Scott Wittman would send me these wild pictures of Paula Strasberg that would make me laugh out loud. I loved getting those photos from Scott and they got me thinking that Susan was part Austin Pendleton, the great actor, theater director, and teacher.

“Austin directed me in a 2009 off-Broadway production of Tennessee Williams’ ‘Vieux Carré.’ It was a treat for me to work with him because he is a premiere teacher at the Actors’ Studio,” she says. “He is truly a gift to the American theater. He is one of the best.”

Even in Susan’s sensible shoes, Nielsen sees to it that the character stands out in a cast that also includes Robyn Hurder, Brooks Ashmanskas, Krysta Rodriguez, John Behlmann, Caroline Bowman, Bella Coppola, Jacqueline B. Arnold, Casey Garvin, and Nicholas Matos.

“Susan is the big dark note they all bounce off of. And when it comes to Ivy Lynn, Susan’s right in many ways—it doesn’t always seem that way, but she’s got an inner voice, too.”

The daughter of U.S. Navy Captain Homer Nielsen and Eloise Gerard Nielsen, a staff member for President Jimmy Carter, Nielsen grew up in the Washington, D.C. and Bethesda, Maryland, areas with her parents and sister Karen. The family spent summers in Cotuit.

“My mother loved the Kennedys and they’re what drew us to the Cape. We had a beautiful summer home, an old sea captain’s house. It had a huge barn, which I always thought we should convert into a home for what I wanted to call The Cotuit Players. It didn’t seem to matter to me then that the Cotuit Playhouse already existed,” recalls Nielsen with a laugh.

It was at another summer venue that Nielsen had her first experiences with the starry side of show business.

“I was an usher at the Cape Cod Melody Tent when Zero Mostel was there with ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ and there was nothing that could compare to watching him play Tevye on that stage every night. I loved working at the Melody Tent,” says Nielsen. “I remember Elaine Stritch doing ‘Mame.’ I didn’t know what drinking was until I met Elaine. She was unique, to say the least. Carol Channing did ‘Lorelei’ at the Melody Tent, too, and she was so funny. And during that time, I also got to see Shelley Winters in Shaw’s ‘Candida’ at the Falmouth Playhouse.”

The two-time Tony Award nominee – for Best Lead Actress in a Play in 2013’s “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” and, in 2019, for Best Featured Actress in a Play for “Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus” – made her Broadway debut in the 1985 revival of “The Iceman Cometh,” starring Jason Robards Jr.

“Robards was good to everyone. You learn so much more watching people like him act than you ever can in class,” says the Yale Drama School graduate. “James Earl Jones was my faculty advisor at Yale, and he was amazing. I got to work with him many years later in the 2014 revival of ‘You Can’t Take It with You.’ While I was at Yale, the magnificent Elizabeth Wilson came to town to do a play by Harry Kondolian.”

As a young actress, Nielsen got not only to see and work with, but also know some major stars.

“Years ago, I would hang around with some older actors like Maureen Stapleton, who had been friends with Monroe and, later, became a friend of mine. I saw many other legendary Method actors, too, like Geraldine Page. Before going to see these amazingly gifted actors, I would make an assessment of how I thought they’d be, and then they’d still surprise me.”

Nielsen says that, like Pendleton, another of those greats lives on in her current portrayal.

“There’s a little bit of Marian Seldes in my Susan Proctor. Marian and I became friends when we did ‘The Skin of Our Teeth’ at Williamstown in 2000 and shared a dressing room. Marian was so good to me and always gave me the best advice. I’ll never forget when she suggested we get together at her New York apartment. Marian said, ‘We’ll have lunch. You’ll have salad,’” says Nielsen with a laugh.

Photo caption: Left to right, Megan Kane (Holly), Brooks Ashmanskas (Nigel), Robyn Hurder (Ivy Lynn), Kristine Nielsen (Susan Proctor), Krysta Rodriguez (Tracy), and John Behlmann (Jerry) in “Smash.” Photo by Matthew Murphy 2025. Kristine Nielsen headshot courtesy of Polk & Co.

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