“Hamilton” is where it all happened for the megahit’s Tony Award-winning star, Leslie Odom Jr.
And when the opportunities began pouring in, he was ready for them.
As the actor-singer-author arrives for a concert with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on Saturday, he is about to begin filming “Harriet,” playing Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad collaborator, William Still, and he is executive producer on an in-development television project.
Post “Hamilton,” Mr. Odom recorded two albums — his self-titled debut and “Simply Christmas,” which that topped the jazz charts. He spent much of the last two years touring his music.
He’s the father of 18-month-old Lucille. His wife, Nicolette Robinson, is on Broadway as the star of “Waitress,” and he isn’t slowing down, but he is spacing out his projects these days.
Where: Heinz Hall, Downtown.
When: 8 p.m. Saturday.
Tickets: $25-$129, pittsburghsymphony.org or 412-392-4900.
“We are being more intentional,” he said. Right after leaving “Hamilton” in July 2016, he found he was saying “Yes” a lot.
“The opportunity to perform live that much and with my own band had never been available to me before ‘Hamilton,’ so I really took advantage of it,” he said.
His most recent concert was playing with the Pops orchestra in his hometown of Philadelphia. Here in Pittsburgh, he will have familiar faces in the audience and onstage.
“I’m very lucky that my conductor for the evening is going to be my voice teacher for all four years at Carnegie Mellon [University], Thomas Douglas,” he noted.
Mr. Odom, 37, attended CMU having already had a big taste of Broadway. At 17, he was part of the original run of “Rent,” but he never imagined himself onstage when he attended events at Heinz Hall.
“Those aspirations came a little later for me, when I saw that people who I respected had these great concert careers — people like Brian Stokes Mitchell, Audra McDonald, Mandy Patinkin, Patti Lupone — that when they weren’t onstage in a musical, they were touring these intimate shows, allowing the audience to get to know them in a different way,” Mr. Odom said by phone on Tuesday.
Before “Hamilton,” he was doing television shows such as “CSI: Miami” and the Broadway-themed “Smash,” but it was the role of Aaron Burr, “the damn fool” who shot Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Alexander Hamilton, that brought him a best actor Tony, a Grammy and his choice of new paths to tread.
“If you’re lucky enough to score a big Disney movie or a Broadway show like I did, or even a TV show, you can turn that into a concert career that is so much fun and gives me freedom in my life — it’s a really great thing. I’m loving it,” he said.
There are certain songs from “Hamilton” that you’d expect to hear the man who played Burr sing — “Dear Theodosia” and “The Room Where It Happens,” for example — and you won’t be disappointed.
“The main principle I build a set around is, I want people to leave happy,” he said.
He also uses the time on stage to introduce the man behind the character, who’s a talented storyteller and author of the book, “Failing Up: How to Take Risks, Aim Higher, and Never Stop Learning.”
“One of the things I hope separates me as a performer is, I hope I use characters to reveal part of myself,” he said. “In concert, it’s all me. It’s Leslie Odom Jr. It’s scary at the beginning, because you have to answer the question: ‘Who is that?’”
Mr. Odom spent some time in Western Pennsylvania in character for “One Dollar,” the series in its first season on Netflix. After his gig at Heinz Hall, he travels to Virginia for “Harriet,” with Cynthia Erivo in the title role.
Ms. Erivo, one of his closest friends and godmother to his daughter, Lucille, took home the Tony as best actress in a musical for “The Color Purple” in 2016, the same year he won best actor in “Hamilton.” Now, they are co-stars, They also worked together this past summer on the sci-fi adventure “Needle in a Timestack,” a John Ridley film now in postproduction.
“Good friends don’t always equal good co-workers, but she is really the best of them — one of the best scene partners I’ve ever had, and I can’t wait to get to Virginia and start work with her again,” Mr. Odom said.
First, he will be onstage at Heinz Hall, giving a Pittsburgh audience its first taste of the much-anticipated local debut of “Hamilton,” which arrives Jan. 1 and stays for 27 days.
“It’s a big responsibility that I don’t take lightly,” he said.
“The ‘Hamilton’ audience is so vast, there’s not many things that cross racial boundaries the way it does, generational boundaries the way it does, and that people in my generation have shared with their children and children have shared with their parents and grandparents,” Mr. Odom said. “You can’t point to a whole lot of things in our culture that unite us in that way.
“Because of that, when you show up at the symphony on a night when I’m headlining, the audience tends to look a lot like the ‘Hamilton’ audience. That’s really special. It’s a family evening I’m sharing with people. So we put together a show, with the symphony, that needs to speak to those little kids and those grandparents. I’m very proud of the show we’ve put together.”
Sharon Eberson: seberson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1960. Twitter: @SEberson_pg. Sign up for the Behind the Curtain newsletter here.
First Published: October 16, 2018, 10:11 p.m.
