Known for her dazzling performances in James Joyce’s The Dead, Billy Elliot, The Full Monty and her Tony-nominated work in Side Show, Emily Skinner has had one of the most impressive stage careers in recent times; unafraid to tackle characters quirky and dark, Ms. Skinner’s gorgeous soprano voice has left indelible marks in the hearts of musical theatre fans all over the world. When she’s not starring in musicals, she is kind enough to grace the stage in concerts and cabaret acts. Since 2003 she’s made several appearances in the delightful series Broadway by the Year, which returns to its home at The Town Hall on February 22, 2016 with the Musicals of the 1930s. Ms. Skinner will once again make an appearance, so she was gracious enough to indulge us with a chat to discuss her favorite musical theatre eras, musical genres of choice, and even some dream roles.

What will you be performing on Broadway by the Year?

I’m singing “It Never Was You”, “I’ll Be Seeing You”, “Love Me or Leave Me” and a great song called “I’ll Tell the Man In the Street”.

If you had to pick what would be your favorite era for musical theatre?

That’s really hard! I tend to like the 30s, 40s and 50s. It’s great to be able to sing in Broadway by the Year because this was the era when pop songs came out of Broadway shows. All of the music that became popular in this time was stuff originally done in Broadway shows and then eked out into the world and became standards.

Do you have any theory on why we don’t see that happen anymore?

That’s a really good question, I don’t know. Maybe that’ll change now that Hamilton is on the Grammys and the pop charts. I think that all changed with TV and then when the internet came into the world.

You recently did a 54 Below show with Alice Ripley, what’s the importance of doing cabaret shows for you?

I really love the cabaret venue because it’s more intimate, the majority of the time you get to pick the music you sing, so I feel you tell people who you are by the songs that you sing. It feels like a more personal and intimate thing.

If someone were to go through your music collection what would they be most surprised to find?

They would think I’m insane probably (laughs) because my iPod is so diverse and strange, I have everything on there: world music, classical stuff, Broadway stuff, contemporary stuff, my tastes are broad.

You starred in The Full Monty and Billy Elliot, what other beloved British movies would you like to see turned into musicals?

Ooh, British?

Yeah, so we can have an Emily Skinner British Musical trilogy.

(Laughs) Maybe when I’m a little bit older there’s a great movie called Calendar Girls...about these middle aged women who pose naked, so that would be fun.

Another Julie Walters part too!

That’s right!

You played Mrs. Wilkinson on and off for almost four years, in Chicago, on Broadway and at The Muny, how did you keep the character fresh?

It was easy, because over the course of that I did the show with 14 different boys who played Billy. Each one was so different than the other, in an eight show week no boy did more than two shows, because it was just so rigorous, like running a marathon, and they were protective of them. So every night I got to do the show with a different kid, there’s no way it’s not gonna be fresh!

You have a beautiful soprano voice, do you find that Broadway tends to be using belting more often than classic singing?

I mean yes a little bit, but I’m very pleased with the fact we have these two major Broadway stars in Kelli O’Hara and Audra McDonald who have stunning soprano voices, so I’m very happy they’re continuing the tradition of singing in a sort of legit way. It’s nice to have it all, it’s nice to have big belty stuff and legit stuff!

Right, more things for your iPod! Any idea of whether we’ll see The Witches of Eastwick on Broadway at any point soon?

I don’t know! Wouldn’t that be nice? It almost came to fruition a couple of times, I’m not sure if it’ll happen at this point. I feel like it would be a fantastic Vegas show, it could be condensed into a really terrific 90 minutes show, and all of the spectacle with the flying and the spells are sort of perfect for that Vegas spectacle kind of thing.

You’ve done Merrily We Roll Along, Company, A Little Night Music. So what are your three favorite Sondheim songs and three roles you’d love to play?

These are hard questions! (Laughs) I’d love to ultimately play Joanne in Company cause it’s an absolutely fantastic role, I’ve done A Little Night Music numerous times, but I’ve yet to play Desiree, so hopefully I’m moving into that at some point, and I’d really love to play either Sally or Phyllis in Follies because they’re both such fantastic roles. I just dream of Alice and I doing that, Alice could play Sally, and I could play Phyllis.

The songs are really hard! I like “Now You Know” from Merrily a lot, I think that’s a knockout song, it’s interesting because it’s a group number, but it’s such a terrific lyric you could do it as a solo and it’s great. Obviously I like “Send in the Clowns” and “Ladies Who Lunch”.

Great choices.

You think? Thanks!

I mean you can’t go wrong with Sondheim, right?

I don’t think so.

For tickets to Broadway by the Year click here.