RACHEL Tucker is Dancing Through Life – to borrow the title of one of the many hit songs from Wicked, the box-office-record-breaking Broadway and West End musical that she has made her own. Now that the definitive Belfast-born Elphaba has hung up her hat and broom for good, she's ready to fly off in a whole new theatrical direction.
Tucker, who first came to wider public attention via the BBC One talent show, I’d Do Anything, is busy rehearsing for what will be her first-ever solo tour which, at her insistence, kicks off at The MAC in Belfast in May.
After putting in (she quickly does the maths in her head) 1,250 performances as her green-faced alter-ego – Wicked's central character is modelled on the wicked witch of the west from The Wizard of Oz – she feels now is the time to break out of character and indulge herself in some of her own favourite music, and maybe “create something new” in the process.
Despite the punishing schedule of the past number of months, while she appeared in the lead role of the special 10th anniversary cast of Wicked in London, the former pupil of Little Flower Girls’ School in Belfast simply cannot rest. Should she not she be basking in the sun somewhere, having a well-earned break before her 12-date UK solo tour begins?” No – there's no time for that.
Sunday was spent in busy rehearsal mode in London with theatre director husband Guy Retallack (they have been married seven years) choosing songs, picking keys, “slowing the tempo down, quickening things up, throwing it out, starting all over again…”
Still proudly grounded – even after singing Wicked's signature song Defying Gravity all those times – it was important for the multi-award winner that her new show should launch in her home town.
"I was adamant that the tour would either start or end in Belfast,” she says. “A home audience, for me, is always so special. I hope people like the new show – I will be singing some favourites, some popular musical theatre numbers of course, but also some pop, blues, classic jazz and soul.
"It’s a chance to do something different and, with a four-piece band, I’m hoping Rachel Tucker Live will show me a different light. It’s taken a lot of work and preparation, but it’s time to step out of Elphaba’s green shadow."
Elphaba might have been a role Tucker hungered for since sitting, literally, on the edge of her seat while watching Wicked in a Broadway theatre as an ambitious 21-year-old, but now aged 35, she knows when it’s time to move on.
"I’ll miss her, there’s no doubt – she was part of my life for so long and Wicked is such a clever show, but I am so excited about what’s round the corner," she says. "My son, Ben, who’s now four, is so used to seeing my green face and he can now sing Defying Gravity pretty well... it’s definitely been fun for him, being able to say his mum is a witch."
She continues: "When you first appear in a show like that, you’re a bit stage-struck, but when you have a child, it’s important to head for the stage door immediately you finish and just get home. You want to get home at the end of the day, like everyone else.
"Lately, I have become very good at getting out of the theatre quickly, getting a glass of wine in my hand and switching off. You have to – when you give so much to the role, it is important to check in with real life or you don’t know where one world ends and the other begins."
Keeping it real proved an essential mental approach to the role she first nailed on the West End, before taking it to Broadway and then back to the West End again, but there were also huge physical demands required to hit the pitch-perfect vocals.
To help stay in top shape, Tucker took multi-vitamins and fitted gym visits around the six-day schedule.
"In terms of being fit, it’s like singing uphill if you’re not. I found I needed to be fitter than normal to play Elphaba,” she recalls.
She had something of a family tradition to uphold, her dad (Tommy Tucker Kelly) having being a well known name on the cabaret circuit.
"I really do believe it’s in the genes; my dad was given the passion for performing by his dad and then he passed it on to me. I never felt boxed in by that, just really excited,” she says. "I wasn’t overly academic at school, so my teachers at Little Flower Girls’ School were brilliant at pushing me in other directions, especially sport and music. If I wasn’t doing this, I think I might have done something sporty; I loved cross-country and was quite good at triathlons. Luckily, the same sort of stamina is needed for a long run in musical theatre."
After leaving school in Northern Ireland, Tucker headed to the bright lights of London to study at the Royal Academy of Music, after which she cut her professional teeth in productions including a much-lauded performance in The Wizard of Oz at the Lyric in Belfast.
On reaching the semi-final of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s I’d Do Anything in 2008, she acknowledges the much-hyped show as the great launch pad that it undoubtedly was and is grateful for a "fantastic opportunity to play with the big boys".
With her name now out there, she went on to win the role of Meat in jukebox musical, We Will Rock You, later making her debut as Elphaba in her first run in Wicked in the West End in 2010. But her Broadway debut came, not as Elphaba as she had dreamed of all those years ago, but in a brand new musical by Sting entitled The Last Ship.
That show closed in under a year, but it was an experience she relished. “And the best bit,” she laughs, “is that I got to be friends with Sting."
Musical theatre is a business, Tucker says, in which "you sometimes just have to put yourself out there and a take a chance".
It's an attitude that stood to her in this instance: "When the Last Ship closed, it lead to Elphaba on Broadway – my all-time dream. So, I think one thing leads to another but you have to be patient and take a risk. That isn’t always easy, or course, when you have bills to pay and your head is telling you that you need to know where the next job is coming from.
“But I think my mum got it right when she said, ‘Rachel, just jump and the net will appear in front of you.”
:: Rachel Tucker Live is at The MAC, Belfast on Saturday May 13 and Sunday May 14. See themaclive.com for tickets and information.
