Most of the time, a trip to the grocery store is just an uneventful trip to the grocery store. Then there is that one time you serendipitously strike up a conversation with the tomboyish-looking red-headed lady in shorts and a baseball cap at the checkout stand, and you realize you’ve just met one of the most highly acclaimed Broadway musical soprano voices ever to grace a stage.
That’s how LNP met Lisa Vroman (no, not related to the bookstore Vromans) whose illustrious worldwide career includes performances on Broadway, the stage and in concert.
She starred in a record-breaking run (more than ten years) on Broadway, Los Angeles and San Francisco stages as Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera, garnering theatre critics’ awards for her portrayal as the ingénue figure of innocence and strength. Her wide-ranging resume includes theatrical credits, portraying Marian Paroo in The Music Man (opposite her idol Shirley Jones), Lili Vanessi in Kiss Me Kate, Josephine in HMS Pinafore, Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus, and Johanna in Sweeney Todd via PBS, where she earned an Emmy Award nod. And that’s just a peek at the list of talented performances she has given all over the globe.
She sang and danced opposite Dick Van Dyke as Mary Poppins at the Hollywood Bowl (Disney 75th) and is a frequent guest with symphonies including San Francisco, Philadelphia, Dallas, St. Louis, Houston, Hong Kong, the BBC Concert Orchestra, and a lot of Pops including Boston, Philly and New York.
We caught up with Lisa at our LNP offices for an intimate interview about her storied career and journey to the grocery checkout stand in Pasadena.
Living in the Dena
“I call myself a perfectionist and a crossover singer. I can go from Gershwin to singing more commercial repertoire. When I started, I sang early music and Mozart and Handel, and it suited me. I also sang show tunes in summer stock at the same time. You ask yourself if that’s what your career is going to be. Singing Christine was a good place for me because I was classically trained. And yet it wasn’t about being perfect – it was about what a beautiful time period it was set in and all the detail.”
“My Pasadena ‘residency’ fell in my lap in 1999 when I had just ended my five-year run of Phantom of the Opera in San Francisco,” says Vroman. “I spent the weekend with friends in Pasadena and agreed to buy their house from them. First-time homeownership is a learning curve! I love the challenge of taking care of this house, and as my handyman skills improved, I did a lot of sanding, painting, rehabbing, etc. Since the home was built in 1929, I learned the handy skill of window glazing.”
But she was on the road most of the time and didn’t live in the house except when she was between contracts.
“The business of ‘Broadway’ can be very unstable,” she says. “But Phantom offered me almost ten years of regular work. I was on two- and three-year contracts. I found myself performing these ultra-feminine girly characters on stage. Some of my friends were shocked when they saw me perform because they only knew me as wearing shorts and T-shirts. And Spanx. Spanx has allowed my career to last longer. I always loved knowing that I was coming home to Pasadena after a long contract.”
Her two brothers and a sister-in-law helped her move to Pasadena after the Phantom gig in San Francisco ended.
“We spent a week discovering the town and realizing there was a bookstore with our name on it! We felt it was an auspicious omen. Early one evening during a rainstorm, we visited the (mostly) empty bookstore. My brother (a 6th grade teacher) announced to the staff, ‘Hi! We’re the Vromans! What do you have with our name on it?’ The employees started unpacking all the items they could find. I still love the fact that everyone who lives here can spell and pronounce my name.”
Vroman is a dog person. She and her dog Romeo traveled across the country seven times when she was touring with Phantom. One of her favorite things is walking with her current dog, Barber, to the Farmer’s Market, where she’s developed an admitted addiction to her favorite olive bread loaf.
“I photograph every dog I meet,” she says.
“Having a dog will connect you to your community in a heartbeat. My husband, Patrick O’Neil, is a wonderful musician and orchestrator who writes and runs all of my symphonic material and library. We were vagabonds,” she says, “until 2004 when we really committed to living here. He, too, traveled constantly, so we both loved the concept of having a home base, especially in Pasadena. The longer we live here, the more we love this community and what it has to offer,” she continues.
“For example, we live near the end of the Rose Parade route and have neighbors and friends who camp along the route. We visit them the night before, and then we are up the next morning to watch the end of the parade with coffee in hand. There is nothing quite like it.”
Vroman sites another Pasadena perk: roundtrip bus service from Pasadena to the Hollywood Bowl.
“It just makes taking advantage of that brilliant venue so easy,” she says. “I sang there for Disney’s 75th concert (with Dick Van Dyke) and had never seen anything like it.”
“The pandemic really cemented our feelings that we were in the right place,” she reiterates. “We had the freedom to walk for hours safely, and we transformed an outside space into a music studio where we could do a few recording jobs and continue to work.”
The Ingénue Becomes the Teacher
When not performing, Vroman teaches voice. She says singers are athletes who need to take care of their instruments. Recently, she’s been asked to instruct at SMU in Dallas, where they are trying to develop an opera and musical theater curriculum.
“All of my teaching went to the Zoom platform during the pandemic,” she continues.
“Patrick set up a camera, mic, and lights, so I had a great audio/visual experience for students’ lessons and for the many Zoom interviews or donor events that came up. This home was really a valuable comfort zone from it all. We cooked every meal here, took advantage of grocery pickup programs and stayed quite safe. We watched many concerts and listened to music constantly, like everyone. I feel artists were and are the second wave of first responders.”
“Opera singers really don’t mature into their voices until their late 20s or early 30s. Taking care of their voices seriously extends their careers to be able to do things like singing and dancing. Performers frequently have non-linear career paths, and that’s actually more realistic. Music educators typically don’t address this reality. The paycheck for starring theater performers can be good. But sometimes, if you sing one or two concerts over a weekend, you could make more than if you were cast in a two-month show.”
Local Work if You Can Get It
Vroman has performed numerous times in Pasadena with the Pasadena Symphony & Pops, outside of Pasadena Hall and summer Pops at the Arboretum, including an upcoming concert with the PSP’s predictably sold-out Annual Holiday Candlelight concert at All Saints Church, with performances on December 13 at 7:00 pm and December 14 at 4:00 pm and 7:00 pm.
The program includes the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, the Donald Brinegar Singers and JPL Chorus, and the LA Bronze Handbell Ensemble, featuring traditional holiday classics and popular standards.
“My husband and I have both traveled extensively. Staying home and keeping up the home improvements has been our shared goal. I’m grateful for the chance to have spent so many years in The Phantom of the Opera, and now I am still singing, teaching, and traveling for concert work. I feel lucky to have fallen into being a homeowner, and it is here in Pasadena. To say I’ve grown to appreciate it is an understatement. We live on the east side of Pasadena. This area of the country seems so open and sunny, and the mountains are there. You can breathe.”
- DEETS
- Pasadena Symphony & Pops featuring Lisa Vroman
- December 13 at 7:00 pm and December 14 at 4:00 pm and 7:00 pm
- All Saints Episcopal Church
