LYNNFIELD — Before being cast in the starring role of Elphaba in “Wicked” on Broadway, Christine Dwyer started out as Oompa Loompa #35 in a Lynnfield Middle School play.
Dwyer’s father brought her mother to see “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” in Boston when she was 23, and she immediately fell in love with the art form.
Raised in Lynnfield, Dwyer saw her first show with her mother at the North Shore Music Theater in 1990, when she was 5 years old. She was convinced on the spot that it was what she had to do with her whole life.
At the time, and today, still, most North Shore musical theater kids went to Noel Smith’s voice studio in Lynnfield.
As did Dwyer. Over the years, she and Smith strategized over her college choices; she finally attended the Hartt School at the University of Hartford and graduated with a bachelor’s in musical theatre.
Her first national tour was in the cast of the national hit musical “RENT,” where she took on the lead role of Maureen Johnson.
After three more years of auditions, Dwyer’s casting directors in New York pushed her to take on the standby and quickly the lead role of Elphaba in “Wicked,” the musical that propelled her to Broadway’s floorboards.
Dwyer now plays the lead in “Waitress,” a Broadway musical written by acclaimed screenwriter Jessie Nelson and directed by Tony Award winner Diane Paulus.
“It was the first Broadway musical to be helmed completely by women,” Dwyer explained. “That is what the show is about.”
The show resonates with her. She finds it unlike many other Broadway musicals in its capacity of addressing the hard stuff, too. And it considerably departs, she thinks, from what North Shore is used to programming.
Jenna, a waitress and pie-maker played by Dwyer, is stuck in an abusive marriage and realizes she is pregnant. She finds solace in her thoughts of escaping by winning a pie-baking contest; the golden ticket for a better life.
“She matters more,” Dwyer said. “The show is about imperfect people doing imperfect things and helping each other make their lives better.”
“Waitress” changes lives.
Dwyer explained: “While being entertained with glitz and glamor is wonderful, changing people’s hearts and minds with real people and stories they can relate to is just as important, if not more.”
A couple of days ago, the cast led a talk about “Waitress.” One woman testified to having been in an abusive relationship. The musical, she said, had helped her out of it. Moments like these multiplied at the stage door, confirming repeatedly to Dwyer the sway of her work.
But the industry is brutal. Doubt plagues professionals, careers follow wavy trajectories, and most of the milieu has not yet overcome the shock of the Covid pandemic.
“Regional theaters are struggling to get people to come see, Broadway is filling up with celebrities,” Dwyer explained. “There are less and less jobs for us.”
She feels grateful to feel part of a solid community in all her casts.
“We are all just geeky kids who want to sing and dance,” Dwyer said. “I’m lucky to have people in my life that have allowed me to keep my head high.”
She met her husband, Matt, also a Broadway actor, in New York.
“We were two of the first coming from a North Shore public school system that got into the industry,” Dwyer said. “We make it a point to come back to this community and to continue to share expertise for young people who want to do this job.
They teach a masterclass at North Shore with Noel Smith to give back to the community that supported them many years ago, when resources on Broadway were more scarce.
Alongside their Broadway careers, Dwyer and Matt started the initiative The Janice Jam in honor of Matt’s mother, Janice DeAngelis, who died of breast cancer in 2022. Their organization benefits the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF).
They leave on June 17 to perform on a ship in Japan and Korea for five weeks, before audition season starts up again for Broadway, in New York City.
“Waitress” played at the North Shore Music Theatre until Sunday, June 15.
And so, thirty years after being cast as a Lynnfield Middle School Oompa Loompa, Dwyer remains close, in spirit, to the community who pushed her forward.
