Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s Gigi was last seen on Broadway more than forty years ago in 1973, a mere four years before 25-year-old Dee Hoty would move to New York City from Cleveland, in hopes of becoming a professional actress. Less than a decade later, Hoty would have three Broadway credits under her name including parts in Me and My Girl and Shakespeare’s Cabaret. Carving her path onstage by playing a variety of characters that ranged from a femme fatale, a motherly figure, a former brothel madam and Will Rogers’ wife, Hoty always defied being typecast, and with each performance proved to be one of the stage’s most chameleonic performers.

In the very first revival of Gigi, Hoty plays Aunt Alicia, the title character’s (Vanessa Hudgens) socialite aunt who tries to turn the free spirited girl into a high society courtesan. The revised book by Heidi Thomas gives Hoty the opportunity to make the most out of a character that could otherwise come off as frivolous, and Hoty seems to be having the time of her life playing the part! Relying on her flawless comedic timing she turns Aunt Alicia’s seemingly superficial qualities into treatises about the many layers women have been forced to wear in order to survive in a male-centric world. Hoty’s scenes with Hudgens and Victoria Clark, who plays Alicia’s sister Mamita, are a true delight and should inspire little girls who attend the show and prove to them the world is in fact their oyster.

We had the opportunity to talk to Hoty during the show’s previews, she talked about the changes the show underwent before coming to Broadway, the significance of the date when they recorded the cast album, and shared stories about the parts that she’s loved performing the most.

I saw the show at The Kennedy Center, what have been some of the major changes it went through before coming to Broadway?

The writers were trying to make the childhood connection between Gaston and Gigi clearer, they wanted to explain why they were so comfortable with each other and why they knew each other so well. Some of the conversations Gaston had with Mamita, they gave to Gigi, which I think is good. They’ve also given Gigi more of a spine, more of a backbone, she stands up to my character, she’s not just shifting her weight in a chair like a schoolgirl, she asks “why do I have to learn about cigars and jewelry?”, you also hear about Aunt Alicia’s background. The biggest change for me is in act two, when Mamita finally relents to have my character give Gigi her makeover, there was a dance number with the maids, which has been cut, so instead of a musical number I just give a couple of speeches about how we’re going to change Gigi. I think it’s a great change!

You mentioned that the writers wanted to give Aunt Alicia a backstory, do you always do this regardless, whenever you first read a script? Is this part of your process?

Yes it is, I read up on the history of the time, in this case certainly the fashions of the Belle Epoque, and what it was like to be a woman in 1900, in the case of my character what it was like to be born in the mid 1800s in Paris, how people lived. Vicki and I have had a lot of conversations because we play sisters about what it was like for us growing up, what happened to our mother and father. It’s the kind of things the audience will never see or know, but it informs how we make choices onstage.

I think the audience does perceive when an actor has worked on building the part though.

Yes, it’s important, it gives you depth.

Let me ask you, were you a fan of the movie or the original musical?

I remember the movie, but I didn’t even realize there was a stage musical of Gigi, that was a little before my time. I remember the movie because I saw it on TV, I remember it was a big hit, somewhere through my formative years I learned about Vincente Minnelli, Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier and all the people who were in it. It was a beautiful film, I knew the songs (hums “Gigi”)...I remember “I’m Glad I’m Not Young Anymore” and “Thank Heaven for Little Girls”, which is a big iconic number. I would not necessarily call myself a fan of the movie, I have a copy of it now because I needed to refresh my memory when I got this part, Aunt Alicia was played by this unbelievable actress called Isabel Jeans who created the part, believe me when I say colloquially that “I’ve taken a page from her book”. It wasn’t anything I was asked to do, I’m trying to do onstage what this team is doing, because they’ve changed the stakes, they’ve updated it in a way that doesn’t seem modernized. Sometimes when they change the language you go “wait, people didn’t talk like this back then”, I think Heidi Thomas has done such a great job with the book, and also our director Eric Schaeffer, they’ve made it more about a woman’s perspective, more about female empowerment, as opposed to in the 50s, when the film was made it was from a man’s viewpoint…

It was kinda creepy!

Yeah, there was a little “perv factor” (laughs), which is why it’s successful that in this show Vicki and I sing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls”, cause it’s about Gigi, not about “ooh, let’s see what can we get”. I think it’s very positive and the best part about it is that in the end Gigi decides she wants to do her own thing. The ending was changed too, as you’ll see, and I think it’s much more powerful, while also being tender and sweet.

Actually when I saw it in DC I was surprised because thanks to the update Heidi did to the book, Gigi will be one of the few shows on Broadway that’s all about girl power!

Yeah, it really is, thank you for saying that. I think it’s a beautiful story and they’re changing it every day. Little things, little tweaks have made to amend the choreography for instance, and the crossovers, to give atmosphere to the piece. These people are very smart, I trust them implicitly, I feel so blessed to have the chance to work with them, it’s also a great part, I love the show, so I hope it runs for a very long time.

I might be making too much of an assumption, but is “The Contract” your favorite number to perform?

Yes, yes! I’m busted, you caught me, I love that number! When I first got it, let me tell you, I thought “I guess this is supposed to be funny, I don’t know what I’m going to do with it”, but then, kaboom, it took off because the guys are so hilarious, and Vicki and I play off each other. We recorded the album and it’s so different now from when I started when everybody was in one big room, and the orchestra was over there, and if one person made one mistake you had to go back and do it all over again. Now, each of the principals is on a different recording booth, there’s separate tracks, the orchestra is on a different track...if you goof out, they just go back and find a better take. I’m going off track here, but it was just so very exciting! At the end of the take the producer asks us how we did, and then the trombone gets his input, the strings make their input, so the producer makes a note of that and they go back and plug in the wrong measures from a different take. I dropped the line at one point, I forgot part of my words, but we kept going because I’d done it right once, and then I did it right the third time, so they had from where to choose from.

I read that growing up in Cleveland, it was actually through cast recordings that you fell in love with musical theatre. What were some of your favorites?

My mother and a friend of hers, traveled to New York when we were all really little kids, and saw My Fair Lady, so I have the original cast recording of My Fair Lady on, they’re not 78s, but almost like 45s, which each song on a small record, it’s not one big LP album. I’m sure it might be worth something on eBay...it’s also so funny that My Fair Lady is also Lerner and Loewe, and I remember hearing the cast of Gypsy with Ethel Merman, which as a kid scandalized me because these women were strippers, I remember also listening to The Fantasticks, I remember meeting Rita Gardner who was the original Girl in that, and I worked with her, so it thrills me to think she was like 20 when she did that recording. What a team behind that show! And it’s been a hit Off-Broadway for who knows how many hundreds of years now...it’s always been running somewhere, it’s such a sweet show. Of course, I was always drawn to shows that I could have a part in (laughs) which isn’t really true of My Fair Lady because I could never sing Eliza, I could do Pygmalion though…

Since you brought up Gypsy can we talk about your beautiful take on “Could I Leave You” from Follies?

I’m very proud of that recording. Eric and I were just talking about that because we actually recorded the Gigi album on Stephen Sondheim’s birthday, it was also Andrew Lloyd Webber's birthday which must be a lucky sign for us.

What other Sondheim parts would you like to play?

I think at some point I’d like to play Joanne in Company, because Eric and I had this conversation about Follies, I thought I’d also like to play Carlotta, I’ve played Phyllis, so in another ten years maybe I can sing “I’m Still Here”, if I am still here (laughs). Of course like everybody dreams, I always hoped that he would write a show for me, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen...I also wanted Cy Coleman to write a show for me, and I think if he’d lived, he might have.

You did originate the parts in Coleman’s City of Angels and The Will Rogers Follies.

And in Barnum I played Charity on the tour.

You’ve played parts in musicals like Footloose which are film adaptations. How do you feel about people who complain that Broadway is becoming a collection of movies turned into musicals?

Honestly, it has gone both ways, look at Beautiful which has just been announced to be turned into a movie, not the other way around. I don’t know if the movie will resemble the Broadway show in any way, the show isn’t just about Carole King, but about her friends who were writing at the time, like Cynthia Weil and Gerry Goffin. It could be argued sometimes that there are no new ideas, but in fact there are so many original musicals this year including Something Rotten!, Fun Home, It Shoulda Been You...there’s a lot of original work. I’m for art, if it’s creative, the people go to the theatre is to be moved, to laugh and to cry, to forget who they are for two and a half hours every night, and we as actors and creatives, we want to help you live a dream with us for a couple of hours. I don’t wanna sound creepy about it, but it’s a little shamanistic, after all the theatre came from church, and we are the priests and priestesses. Like in Pippin, come join us....

What part you’ve played onstage would you like to play onscreen?

Hmm...I’m not sure whether it would be a good movie or not (laughs) and I feel like it might’ve already been done because it was based on Raymond Chandler’s work, but City of Angels, I would’ve loved to be in a movie of that. It certainly was an original book, but it was inspired by film noir. It would’ve also been fun to do The Will Rogers Follies but I’m not sure how that could’ve ever happened, cause it’s a Follies, it’s meant to be live with the girls and their huge headdresses, I’m glad they have it but watching ballet on film is not the same as going to the ballet. You might get close-ups, but onstage it’s all a wide shot, the spotlight is your close up. I’ve been very blessed to love every role I’ve played, so this is like choosing between your children (laughs).

Gigi opens on April 8. For more information and tickets visit our listing.