By Melissa Griegel…
Photos by Melissa Griegel Photography
Two-time Tony® nominee Kate Baldwin (Hello, Dolly!, Finian’s Rainbow, Big Fish) returned to 54 Below for three March performances. The Bucket Show featured a different guest star each night. Graham Rowat (Meteor Shower, Sunset Boulevard, Guys and Dolls) joined Baldwin at the show I attended, March 13th, 2026. Tony® Award winner Alex Newell (Shucked, Once on This Island, Chicago) was part of the March 14th show and livestream. Tony® Award nominee Robyn Hurder (Moulin Rouge! The Musical, SMASH, A Beautiful Noise) helped close the run on March 15th.
Baldwin, who just finished an acclaimed run as Roxie Hart in Broadway’s Chicago, was accompanied by her longtime music director and collaborator, Georgia Stitt, on piano and Chris Peters on guitar. Along with stories from her career, Baldwin shared with us some of her favorite songs by Kander and Ebb, Sondheim, Kurt Weill, Ahrens and Flaherty, Irving Berlin, and Jerry Herman that celebrate the roles she enjoyed playing, and some roles still on her bucket list.
One such dream role she would like to play is Dot in Sunday in the Park with George. She sang the titular song from Sondheim’s musical. Her husband Graham Rowat was the perfect person to duet as the Baker opposite her with another dream role, the Baker’s Wife, with “It Takes Two” from Into the Woods.
Baldwin imbued the show with humor and personality and bits of her life on stage, on the road, being a mom, and being married to another Broadway actor. She got to play Marian the Librarian from The Music Man twice. Changing the lyrics of “My White Knight”, Baldwin gave us some insight into her life juggling a husband, a child, and a career. She talked about how her career has been mostly playing ingenues, singing high notes. She joked, “After playing Roxie Hart, who is maybe a tenor, my voice has really been in the basement. And here we are, still in the basement!”
She initially turned down the part of Roxie Hart in Chicago when asked several times in a row in the years following the pandemic, thinking that it wouldn’t be the right fit. She finally went to see the show to see if she could imagine herself in the part. “It was fantastic. I had the best time,” she said. “What I appreciated, what I saw on stage, was that Roxie Hart had guts, she had weird charm. Yes, she is an adulteress; yes she is a murderess. But, we like her anyway. She’s really good at learning on the job, right? She kind of reminded me of another misfit that I played in the past. I started calling my version of Roxie Hart ‘Bad Nellie Forbush’”. With that, Baldwin sang “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair” from South Pacific, mixed in with some familiar Chicago musical phrasing on the piano by Stitt, some Fosse choreography, and a black hat.
Some highlights of the evening were “The Boy From…” (The Mad Show) replete with an egg maraca, “Mr Right” from Love Life, and Kander and Ebb’s “New York, New York.” “I’m sort of known for sad ballads,” she said. She was nominated for her 2017 role as Irene Molloy in Hello, Dolly! She sang “Ribbons Down My Back” but in a new way, that was soft and slow and moving. “I wanted to do it in a different way. This is what I call the grown-up Irene Molloy. Here’s another version that Chris and I made up.”
“When words fail, we sing,” she said. “When I didn’t have a song to fill a spot in this show, I turned to my friend Georgia and said, do you have a song?” From the piano, Stitt said, “I love when Kate says ‘Do you have a song?’ because either I dig and find one, or I just write one.” She and Hunter Foster are working on a musical called The Big Boom, about the end of the world. Baldwin sang “Pinnacle Moment” from that show. Stitt just released a new album entitled Bell Tower.
The Bucket Show was a delightful evening of music with Baldwin, who looked beautiful in a lacy pant suit. “I hope by singing these songs, and sort of embodying them, and releasing them, I can make room for the good stuff that is to come because I believe there is got to be good stuff left, right? After all, I am just a small-town Wisconsin girl who cannot believe her good luck and good fortune living in this city, the best city in the entire world.”
