Broadway star Chenoweth taking career in stride

Friday, Oct. 12, 2001 | 9:07 a.m.

In a short-lived television series earlier this year, Kristin Chenoweth starred as a sweet, wholesome young woman from Oklahoma who went to Broadway seeking her fortune and failed.

The storyline of NBC's "Kristen" was fiction.

In reality the sweet, wholesome young woman from Oklahoma went to Broadway and succeeded.

Chenoweth, a native of Broken Arrow (a suburb of Tulsa), Okla., played the role of Sally in "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" during the 1998-99 theater season.

The part won her:

On Saturday the 33-year-old singer/actress will open the Best of the New York Stage Series for the UNLV Performing Arts Center. The series is part of the university's Charles Vanda Master Series, which has been bringing some of the best performers from around the world to Las Vegas for more than 25 years.

Chenoweth, speaking by phone from Los Angeles earlier this week, said she is looking forward to the upcoming concert and to spending time with UNLV students.

One of the elements of the Charles Vanda Master Series is putting students together with professional performers in a classroom setting. Chenoweth is scheduled to meet with students today.

"I'm excited about the class," she said. "I like to open up discussions. Some of the students prepare auditions for me to critique. It hasn't been too long ago that I was in college. I really like working with new talent.

"A lot of kids want to move to New York or L.A., and they want to know what has happened in my life."

Basically, her life has been charmed. Blessed with beauty, talent, luck and a willingness to work hard, Chenoweth has been all over the entertainment scene.

Broadway. Television. Concerts. Films. She has done and is doing them all.

If she had to choose one as her favorite venue, she says it probably would be concerts.

"I have enjoyed it all so much," Chenowith said. "All these things are wonderful -- television and films are wonderful. But what I am is a musician, a singer. Every time I get to go onstage and do my concert, it's a treat for me. It fills me up -- it's like going back to Oklahoma, it rejuvenates me, it's where my roots are.

"If everything ended tomorrow and I just had my concert work, I would be a happy camper."

Chenoweth attended Oklahoma City University, where she earned a bachelor's degree in musical theater and a master's degree in opera performance.

She received a scholarship in 1993 to the distinguished Philadelphia Academy of Vocal Arts, but en route got distracted.

"I felt like I might want to be an opera performer and ended up getting accepted to the Academy, but before I got there I took a couple of weeks to help a friend move to New York," Chenoweth said.

While there she decided to see what it was like to audition for a part in an off-Broadway production and won a lead in George S. Kaufman's "Animal Crackers," a 1925 play that was made into a film in 1930 starring the Marx Brothers.

The opera world's loss was Broadway's gain.

Chenoweth made her Broadway debut in 1996 in a production of Moliere's "Scapin." The next year she appeared in the Kander and Ebb musical "Steel Pier" and in 1998 she performed in "Strike Up the Band" and "A New Brain."

She starred in the role of Sally in the first Broadway production of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" in 1998.

Since then, her career has taken off in several different directions, appearing in ABC television's 1999 production of "Annie" and starring in the sitcom "Kristen," which was designed for her.

Thirteen episodes of the show were filmed last fall and the series was to begin March 13. But before the start-up date, there were changes in NBC management.

"We were put on as a summer replacement and we began to gain a little bit of an audience, but ultimately we were canceled," Chenoweth said. "I'm not bitter about it. It was a wonderful experience and I learned a lot. We were a victim of circumstances."

With barely a pause to catch her breath, Chenoweth soon will begin shooting a remake of the film "The Music Man," playing the role of the wholesome Marian the librarian.

And she has committed to a project by Universal Studios, a film based on the "Wizard of Oz" but focusing on the two witches in the story -- the Wicked Witch of the West and Glenda the Good Witch.

Guess which role Chenowth will play?

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