Interview: Kennedy Kanagawa of WAITRESS at Theatre Under The Stars

Kennedy Kanagawa is an actor, singer, and dancer who was born in Tokyo to a Japanese businessman and a redheaded woman from Mississippi. He now lives in New York City, where he's based. But he's coming to Houston, and he will be in the Theatre Under the Stars run of Waitress, a co-production in partnership with the 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle. The show runs in Houston from April 16th through the 27th at the Hobby Center; the music features the songs of Sarah Bareilles and a book by Jesse Nelson. You may recognize the title because it's based on a 2007 movie that featured Keri Russell. Kennedy is playing the role of Ogie, and Broadway World writer Brett Cullum got to sit down and talk with him about his role and his career.  

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Brett Cullum: So you're in Waitress! Tell me a little bit about what it is about as a show. It's one that I have yet to see, and I don't think Houston audiences have had a chance to see it, because it hasn't hit Houston. This is a regional premiere for this piece.

Kennedy Kanagawa: I love this story so much. And so whenever I'm talking to someone who's not familiar with the musical or the film, I get so excited because I think it's such a special story. It's about a lot of things! It is about a woman named Jenna, who is a waitress in a diner somewhere in the South, and it is about motherhood and womanhood and the strength that you can find in sisterhood. It is beautiful and devastating at times but also balanced with these wonderful moments of levity. There's really something for everybody. I can't speak highly enough about it.

Brett Cullum: Well, who do you play in the show? I mean, I'm a little bit familiar with the movie.

Kennedy Kanagawa: I play Ogie. So it's short for Oklahoma if you're talking about his full name, but Ogie is. So basically, there are three waitresses at this diner, and we have Jenna, who is the main protagonist whose story we follow. But there are these other two waitresses who play supporting roles, and we follow their journeys as well. One of those waitresses is Dawn, who's played by Tori Gresham, who is just phenomenal in this part. She is a very timid, prim and proper, meek person who loves rules and straight lines and right angles, and she goes on a date with someone she matches on a dating website. And his name is Ogie. Jenna's character has a lot of negative interactions and relationships with men. So, Ogie is the flip side of that and demonstrates that there is potential to have men who are loving unconditionally and supportive. He's also a little quirky and loves Revolutionary War reenactments, magic tricks, and clogging. So, he provides a little bit of humor to a story that can also sometimes be a little dark.

Brett Cullum: I watched a clip of you in rehearsal, and you use a really thick Southern accent. Is that by any chance influenced by your mom? I know I mentioned that your mom was from Mississippi. Is that natural?

Kennedy Kanagawa: Indeed. He. Yeah, my mother is from McCall, Mississippi. That whole side of the family is still there. I'm actually flying there tomorrow for a wedding in Jackson. So it's been a fun opportunity to utilize the accent that my family, or at least that side, has because you don't often have Asian American performers speaking with a thick Southern drawl. So it's been a blast kind of pulling that out and being like this is another side of me that I'm able to utilize, and it's so much fun. 

Brett Cullum: It's very funny. It's gonna be amazing. So I can't wait to see how it is on stage. Tell me a little bit about where you grew up.

Kennedy Kanagawa: I was born in Tokyo, Japan, and lived there till I was around ten. My mother met my father in the States. But then, when they got married, they moved back to Japan, had babies, raised us, and then my mother remarried. I guess when I was ten, we moved to DC because of his job. I've been here ever since.

Brett Cullum: So, when did you 1st experience avocado and sushi? Is that like an American thing?

Kennedy Kanagawa: It is. Yes.

Brett Cullum: They don't do that in Japan?

Kennedy Kanagawa: No, avocado is a very American thing, and don't get me wrong, I love avocado, and I love sushi. But talk about culture shock; I mean, that's the least of my worries. On my first day of American public school, there were these kids in the cafeteria, doing a hot dog bouncing contest where they were chucking their hot dogs on the floor to see if they would bounce. And I was like, “This is the most barbaric thing I've ever witnessed. I want to go home.” And you know, honestly, I'm still adjusting. I think all these years later, I've enmeshed enough to function, but I still don't plan on bouncing hot dogs on the ground anytime soon.

Brett Cullum: Well, welcome to America. We put avocado on everything. Sometimes, we bounce a hot dog! It's all part of it. But when did you get into the theater?

Kennedy Kanagawa: I have always done it. I did it in school in Japan. I actually got into it because my mother is American, English is her first language, and she lived in Japan. She kind of fell into voiceover work and narration. She became the go-to English speaker for a lot of voiceover work in Tokyo. And I think one day, the little kid she was supposed to be doing a job with threw a tantrum. She had brought me along because she didn't have a babysitter, and I was like, “I'll do it!” Then, because I was bilingual, I started working in voiceover, which was so fun, and I loved the performance aspect of it, and taking on different characters, and then eventually I was like, “Oh, you can do this, not just with your voice, like with your physical body, too.” And then, when we moved to the States, I kept it up and went from there. 

Brett Cullum: Your bio says that you're a singer. You're a dancer as well. So when did that get folded in? We know you started acting with voiceover…

Kennedy Kanagawa: My mom enrolled me in ballet right when we moved to DC, and I hated it. But I enjoyed being able to physically express myself in that way. That opened the door to tap and jazz, and I actually did a little bit of clogging in middle school, which has come full circle because you get to see me clog in the show, and I couldn't be more excited to get to do it. I've just always been a singer. I think that was my first love, really, before I did it professionally. I have a love for all of those things and am thrilled whenever I get to pull from any of them and blend them together. I think Ogie, in Waitress, is a very physical character. He has a lot of clowning aspects to him, including his vocal affectation. It's been fun drawing on the different things that I've studied over the years and seeing how I can meld them together to create this character.

Brett Cullum: You sound uniquely qualified because you have a Southern mother. So the accent's easy. You obviously did clogging! But what about magic?

Kennedy Kanagawa: Yeah, I don't have a background in magic. I will say Ogie loves magic tricks. But it's been really fun in this rehearsal process figuring out what magic tricks we'll do, and you'll see the reveals in the show. But man, during Tech, when we were at 5th Avenue in Seattle. I had worked with my dresser to sew a brace and hide things under. I'm wearing multiple layers of clothes, and I can pull props out of my body without the audience seeing! And I think we've been pretty successful. So, I'm excited for Houston to see all of the tricks we have LITERALLY up our sleeves.

Brett Cullum: What do you think was challenging about the show Waitress? Obviously, you had to learn magic! But what else challenged you in it? We are talking about what's easy for you, from clogging to Southern accents. But what was a growth thing for you?

Kennedy Kanagawa: Definitely, the biggest challenge was the fact that Ogie's song in the show is so hard in because it's very high with a lot of these really awesome held notes that are very fun to do. But the song is also very physical and very active, and I am sprinting around the stage, jumping over things, throwing things in the air, and clogging. It was a really great challenge, figuring out how to breathe because I did have to sing, and figuring out the places where I needed to make sure that I had a long enough breath to sustain myself through the end of the bar, but making sure that I'm still hitting all of my marks was a really fun and a really hard thing to navigate. But we finally got there. But, man, it's a really tough role. I don't enter for a while, which is nice. I have time to warm up my body and my voice before getting on stage. But once I'm on stage! When I get off stage, I almost need an oxygen mask. Thank God we're doing this in Houston and not like Salt Lake City because I don't think I would survive.

Brett Cullum: We're very low in elevation. You can breathe a little bit easier. I love that people don’t know that when you're in a musical, it really is about being a triple threat. It is about being able to sing and dance while singing, which is completely different from just standing and singing. And then you gotta act like you're not dying while you're doing all of this.

Kennedy Kanagawa: Exactly! It is fun. But oh, it's it's hard, too. Yeah, I definitely practiced on the treadmill, going over my song to try and increase the lung capacity. Get the rhythm going because oof it's a doozy but so so worth it.

Brett Cullum: Well, tell me a little bit about where you come from theatrically. What have you been in? What would folks know you from, or what kind of shows have you done before, Waitress?

Kennedy Kanagawa: People probably know me from when I was in the revival of Into the Woods that happened in 2022. I got to play Milky White, which was a puppet [Jack’s cow]. I'd never puppeteered before and had to do a lot of learning on the go, which is my favorite thing to do and was very rewarding. So I got to do that. We started out at City Center in New York and transferred to Broadway, and then we extended three times before finally having to close because another show was coming into the theater, but the cast all loved each other so much. We weren't ready to say goodbye, and we all went on tour together and did that for another 6 months, and that ended in August 2 years ago.

Brett Cullum: What do you have coming up? What's after Waitress?

Kennedy Kanagawa: I am doing Frozen next, which I'm very excited about. I did a production of it at the end of last year, playing Olaf, which was also designed as a puppet, which was fun! I'll be playing Olaf again, also with a puppet. I'm excited to see the differences.

Brett Cullum: Well, what a great part for you, Olaf! You seem to be specializing in people that start with. O. I will look for Kennedy Kanagawa in Othello very soon! Kennedy, thank you so much for talking to me about Waitress. I can't wait to see it. It's never been here in Houston, so a lot of us have not seen it. This TUTS production is very exciting because we've got all of these new faces, including yours, to look forward to, to see performing in it, and it sounds like a very charming, warm kind of show, and the music of Sara Bareilles, which we didn't even talk about!

Kennedy Kanagawa: Amazing. I was gonna say it's incredible.

Brett Cullum: I figure we could skip that whole conversation because we all know she's amazing. So break legs. And I hope everything goes well. Good luck with your future in FROZEN with a puppet after all of this! Bounce some hot dogs while you're at it!

Kennedy Kanagawa: Thank you so much.

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