ANGELA INGERSOLL-BEYOND THE RAINBOW
Conversations with Ed Tracy Podcast
If you have been fortunate to see Angela Ingersoll recently on stage or in concert, you already know what the big buzz is about. She is smart, sassy, sexy, and above all, a natural born talent.
Ingersoll’s critically acclaimed performance as Judy Garland in the recent Porchlight Music Theatre production of End of the Rainbow channeled every ounce of her powerhouse talent to elevate our imagination and richly stir our compassion for the fragile and falling star. It was all there – electrifying stage performances, manic vitality, childlike enthusiasm and reckless abandon – all seeming to unfold effortlessly in the moment in Ingersoll’s unforgettable performance.
Her theatre resume is impressive spanning dozens of stage appearances with Marriott Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Drury Lane, Madison Rep, Playhouse on the Square and others. She has appeared with Second City Hollywood and on television in Chicago PD. No stranger to the Garland songbook, Ingersoll continues to perform concert versions of her one-woman Judy Garland show with the Artists Lounge Live concert series produced by her actor/singer husband, Michael Ingersoll.
Angela joined the conversation on February 1st to discuss the run with Judy, what’s happening next for her live concert career and how she met and fell for the special ‘Jersey Boy’ in her life.
On which Judy Garland song brings her most joy …
“It’s an impossible question … Of course, ‘Rainbow’. It’s arguably one of the best pop songs ever written. It so perfectly captures the human experience both musically and lyrically …. ‘Man Who Got Away’ is the most comfortable … feels like home … it sits right in my body and I have worn the grooves of that record on my throat the longest. I love singing ‘Stormy Weather’ … it really is very important to me … my favorite moment of Carnegie hall … one I have recently taken on is ‘Rock-a-Bye Your Baby’ . I stayed away from it for a few years because I was intimidated … it was maybe her favorite … it is so sexy!”
On her relationship with Judy Garland …
“I like being old Judy, I’m not a young Judy. I’m an old Judy. … I never really put her on the shelf or put her away. She has been a part of my life my entire life and continues to be. It is just more public now.”
On sharing the human experience in Artists Lounge Live shows …
“We find an artist who is so influenced by an icon that they seem to be the torchbearer for that person’s legacy going forward and there is a real intimacy in the storytelling. It is about the storytelling … the very human aspects of the person’s life.”
Connecting with Judy beyond the music …
“One of the most important parallels is she had a very strained relationship with her mother and I have had a complicated relationship emotionally with my mother … So many of her emotional scars were handed down to me … not by her own fault … Inheriting a lot of her pain has informed me a lot … It is my window into the kind of pain with which Judy lived.”
What’s ahead …
“Judy’s centennial is coming up in 2022. In 2021, we will have the 60th anniversary of Carnegie Hall. I am working toward having relationships with orchestras … so I can be the foremost person doing this in the world, quite honestly. I know that is a lofty thing to say but ‘we gotta dream somewhere’ and I am trying not to censor myself.”