Eden Espinosa on the Radical Vision of Tamara de Lempicka—And Her Grand Return to Broadway

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Sixteen years after Eden Espinosa’s last appearance on Broadway—in the closing cast of Rent, when that historic show’s final performance was recorded for theatrical release—she is finally back. This season, Espinosa stars in Lempicka, an ambitious new musical that seeks to restore another woman’s rich creative legacy. Based on the life of Polish painter Tamara de Lempicka, whose stylish Art Deco portraits are as bold as the libertine bisexual lifestyle she led in interwar Paris, it arrives on Broadway after a lengthy series of labs, workshops, and regional productions dating back to 2011. Espinosa had been eyeing it since 2014, when she messaged composer Matt Gould on Facebook and received demos in return. After a brief stint as Rafaela, a composite of the artist’s love interests now played by Amber Iman, Espinosa locked into the lead role in time for Lempicka’s 2018 premiere at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Its Broadway debut is serendipitously timed. Lempicka is repeatedly name-checked in longtime collector Barbra Streisand’s recent memoir; her work Andromeda features in Madonna’s ongoing Celebration Tour; and the cover of Dua Lipa’s 2020 album Future Nostalgia owes its defiant chic to the painter’s Autoportrait (Tamara in a Green Bugatti) from 1929. Later this year, the first major U.S. retrospective of her work will open at San Francisco’s de Young Museum, but in the interim New Yorkers can take in “The World of Tamara” at Sotheby’s before heading to the Longacre Theatre—which is exactly what Espinosa did one rainy afternoon while the show was still in previews. Walking amid paintings that, until then, she had only seen reproduced, the actor was having an almost out-of-body experience.

Her years between Broadway roles were fruitful and eye-opening, with parts in touring companies and on television series, but hers is a voice best known and best suited for the largest of stages. The early promise of her career—it’s her Elphaba captured in the Wicked-themed episode of Ugly Betty—saw a fiery resurgence during the pandemic, when she protested for change in the theater industry, and now it finds its way back home.

Vogue followed Espinosa throughout her Sotheby’s walkthrough before a cozy check-in at the Sant Ambroeus downstairs.

Vogue: Did the paintings themselves figure into your research for the role?

Eden Espinosa: The [composition] of them—finding that hard and soft, because she has that, too, in my mind. Trying to manage two things at once—the masculine and the feminine, the drive and the want for peace—is so much a part of everything that she does. Studying them in that way has helped me create the persona of a person I don’t know. We can get the essence of her from all the information, whether it’s true or not, because her image was so purposely constructed. She was known for messing with where she was from, when she was born, all this kind of stuff.

Was there a point you had to stop your research and focus solely on the musical’s book?

I did, because although it was fascinating, it was confusing me on how to play the character. We have a set of facts, but our show is fictionalized. And [Tamara] also told so many versions of the truth. I just wanted to take away my interpretation of the essence of who she was. Just as she tries to capture a moment, I’ve felt like I have been trying to capture her. I feel like I’m just now catching up to her, in a sense: her ambition, her complexities. Did I do a good job in years past? Sure, but I feel like today, it is a mirror to my life and how I want to expand, and take up space, and not apologize, and feel worthy of this moment.

Did you learn anything surprising about her?

The balls that she had at every point in her life. Her great-granddaughter Marisa told us this story of how Tamara went to the opera and saw Tadeusz [her first husband, played by Andrew Samonsky in the production] surrounded by women. So the next time, knowing he’d be there, she showed up with two geese on a leash so she’d be noticed. That’s how they got married.

Her mind was always working: the way she saw things, the way she put them together, the way she would have herself photographed and only allow people to print certain photos. It was a way of branding that just wasn’t a thing back then, especially for women. At the time, how did you have that power? And I have a lot of compassion for the fact that she never felt like she could be truthful about things like her age, or being Jewish, or liking men and women—even though she wasn’t really apologetic about it. She had to be careful. That type of oppression feels heavy, always feeling, I have to pick up and move because we’ve got to go, and here’s how I’m going to do it, and I’m going to have my money in jewels so that nobody can take it from me. That survival mentality that a lot of people in this country haven’t experienced.

Tamara de Lempicka, L’Éclat, circa 1932. Oil on panel, 14¼ by 10⅝ in. 32.2 by 27 cm.

Tamara de Lempicka, Nu aux buildings, 1930. Oil on canvas, 36 2/8 by 28 6/8 in. 92 by 73 cm.

It’s a belt-heavy show. How are you preserving energy?

The last time I did something this monumental, I was significantly younger. I’ve been training for a year because this score is not just in one area of my voice: It’s down in the basement, up in the rafters, in the middle. I have to really use every facility that I have. It’s not easy at 46, I’m not going to lie. But I’m finding my stamina with every show; when I need to conserve and when I can just let go. I want to leave it all out there, I don’t want it to feel calculated. With finding that, you have to try some things that aren’t going to pan out every night.

You haven’t been on Broadway since 2008. At that point, did you think you’d always be working in New York?

I had a naïve way of thinking that once you’re on Broadway, you’re going to keep working on Broadway. Nobody prepares you for the ebbs and flows of this business—even once you’ve done a few leads, [and been in] recognizable things—and what roles are available for certain age ranges of women. I lost myself a tiny bit because I realized how much worth I was putting in how often I was getting hired. It was soul-crushing because I thought, That’s it. I’m washed up. My career’s over. You lose sight that there’s so much more out there that you can be a part of; beautiful art that may never see the light of day in New York.

That’s partially why I’ve been with this for so long—never knowing, but wanting to make it to New York. Trusting the timing of your life and knowing New York audiences weren’t ready to see this show before the pandemic. I think audiences, whether they know it or not, are hungry for big risks. This show—I don’t mean to be crass—has very big dick energy. It’s taking huge swings. It has a very strong, singular point of view. That’s the beautiful thing about [director] Rachel [Chavkin] as a visionary: she always has a point of view. And the costumes have a point of view. The set has a point of view. We haven’t had that in a while.

Photo: Emilio Madrid

How does it feel to come back?

A lot of us who have done several iterations of this show, and felt the ups and downs of our hopes of going to New York, have to remind each other that it’s really happening. I’m a very emotional person and I think what is setting in for me is the community being happy for Eden, and being so giving and effusive and supporting. To feel that, equally for myself as for Amber—this being her first lead on Broadway—there is just so much love that it’s overwhelming.

On another note, you’re part of a rich YouTube legacy, just based on the sheer number of Wicked compilations that include you. Are you aware of that “Golden Age of Elphabas” distinction?

Yes, I’m very aware. [Laughs.] That whole craze started right at the beginning of my career here in New York. Chat rooms were just barely a thing, YouTube was just barely a thing. People used to hand me bootlegs of my performances on discs before then. I don’t condone it, but I’m happy there are people in Belgium who would never know who I am and can say, “I love her Elphaba.”

That’s the other thing, too. People go, “Wait a minute, you haven’t been on Broadway for 16 years?” Like, yeah, dude, Rent was in 2008. The things that I’ve done are big, iconic things that live forever on the internet, so it doesn’t feel that way for people.

During the pandemic, you were very vocal about the industry’s need for change, joining the March on Broadway, speaking at the Broadway United for Racial Justice protest, and calling on the Actors’ Equity Association to better protect its members. Did you worry that outspokenness would affect your chances of returning to Broadway?

I wasn’t really worried about that because I knew that change was going to come, but not overnight. I knew that I was educating myself in a way that I had never done before, and a lot of artists don’t do that, by design. They tell us that we should just be grateful and smile and do the job, and I knew that I wanted to align myself with people who were interested in making change. But over time, I realized that it’s not as simple as you think it is. This toxic industry has taken years to build and it’s going to take years to change. You might not live to see it, but you could be a part of ushering it into a new era. That’s what I’m interested in doing: building up producers like ours who are young and innovative, and care about the institution, and bring forward the things that work and question the things that don’t.

Is AFECT [Artists for Economic Transparency, an organization she co-founded with actor Karen Olivo after uncovering political donations made by theater owners in 2020] still going?

No, it’s not, unfortunately. At the end of the day, Karen and I had different ideas about what it needed to be. They were very intent on not being a part of [Broadway], and I said from the beginning that while I don’t want to align myself with some of these people, I still want to be an actor. I was very interested in understanding the structure of money and where it goes and educating people about that but, in developing it, we had a difference of vision.

Is activism something you’re still passionate about?

I just had a conversation with Amber, who founded the Broadway Advocacy Coalition and Black Women on Broadway, yesterday. I said to her, “I look to you a lot more than you realize because your generation is empowered in a different way than mine, and those before were not. When I see you advocating for yourself in a way that I would never even think to, you inspire me.” I take a page from her book a lot.

This conversation has been edited and condensed. Lempicka opens at the Longacre Theatre on April 14.