Puttin' on the Kritz

"I'm the greatest star," sings Fanny Brice in Funny Girl. "I am by far! But no one knows it." It's a line that Leslie Kritzer understands well. In 2001, she played Brice—the role that made Barbra Streisand famous—at New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse, earning ecstatic chatter from musical-theater cognoscenti. Rumors of a Broadway transfer never panned out, but eight years later, the buzz around Kritzer is back. The prodigiously gifted actor-singer, 31, has emerged as the most potentially thrilling Broadway diva of her generation—and the public is starting to know it.

Kritzer seems simultaneously exhilarated and exhausted (her smile is wide and bright, but her eyeliner is smudged at the corners) after a rehearsal for her latest project: the new Paul Scott Goodman musical ROOMS a rock romance. Her character, Monica, is a brash Scottish-Jewish songwriter, and she is wearing an outfit that helps her feel the part: fishnet stockings, leather boots, a clubby white sweater. She has only one costar in ROOMS—the talented Doug Kreeger (Thrill Me)—and Kritzer is excited about Goodman's score, an ideal showcase for her voice. "I get to belt my face off," she promises. "The music is on par with the difficulty of Wicked: It just keeps going and going and going."

That Kritzer can sing, of course, comes as no surprise to those who have been following her steady rise. A 1999 graduate of the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, she paid her New York dues in the ensembles of shows including Godspell, Hairspray and Legally Blonde. Then, in 2006, came her biggest breakthrough to date: the Joe's Pub hit Leslie Kritzer Is Patti LuPone at Les Mouches.

Director Ben Rimalower had acquired a videotape of Broadway berdiva Patti LuPone's 1980 set at a Chelsea nightclub, and asked Kritzer if she would re-create the show live, as a postmodern tribute-cum-goof. It was supposed to be a one-night gig—but rave reviews and explosive word of mouth led to multiple sold-out extensions. "We worked our asses off," Kritzer recalls. "We rehearsed in Ben's apartment with, like, a lamp pole with a fake microphone attached. It just goes to show that if you have an idea and you believe in it, anything's possible."

The LuPone piece was far more than a tribute act: It established Kritzer as a significant vocal and comic presence in her own right. Rimalower compares her connection to the audience to that of Bette Midler in her legendary 1970s stint at the Continental Baths. "In addition to her phenomenal singing and acting, Leslie has that electricity on stage," he notes. "It's a kind of magic that most performers don't have, especially in our generation of musical theater."

The secret was out, and Kritzer has spent the past two years doing the dance of the rising star: trying to stay confident but not arrogant, experienced but not jaded, ambitious but patient in a world in which so few parts are available even to the best. Luckily, she is at heart a character actor—her influences, she says, run the gamut from Gilda Radner to Parker Posey—and her versatility has been a boon: Last year, she landed her first major Broadway role, playing the bride-to-be daughter in the bittersweet, low-key musical A Catered Affair. "That's what I've always wanted," she says. "To be able to do a show like Legally Blonde, then turn around and be a quiet, introverted character in A Catered Affair, and then go to a show like ROOMS and be completely out there. And nuts."

The role of Monica in ROOMS has a lot in common with Kritzer, observes Kreeger. "Monica is a bit of a drama queen, but in positive ways," he says. "It's tricky, because she has to be sort of a bulldozer, but endearing at the same time. And I think Leslie has that. She's so off-the-wall and intense, but there's something you love about her."

"Monica is a great role for me and I'll tell you why," Kritzer says. "It's someone who wants to be a star. She is a really good singer and a really talented person, but she's so hungry to be huge, and needs that in order to feel special. And I think that's something I really can relate to." She leans back, and relaxes a little into her seat. "We all want to be special."

ROOMS a rock romance opens Mar 16 at New World Stages.

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