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Bex Odorisio
open-call audition, Orodisio instead
auditioned for the national tour of
the show. The March 2020 auditions
were postponed for obvious reasons,
but Odorisio got another shot in the
summer of 2021, when another round
of auditions was held virtually. The
rest is history.

What was it like to do an
audition over Zoom?
It was actually kind of fun because I
got to be in my living room. I wasn’t
wearing any shoes — They didn’t
know that, but I guess they’ll know
it now. And it was both exciting and
comfortable, and also a little surreal,
because it felt almost like I was hav-
ing a dream where I was auditioning
for something in my living room, but
it was really happening.

What does your day-to-day look
like while touring?
A Photo by Kris Rogers
SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
rdmore native Bex Odorisio has “Proudly Bat Mitzvah’d”
displayed prominently on her resume, but that’s hardly the
most eye-catching thing listed there.

The singer and actor received training at New York University’s
Tisch School of the Arts and the Upright Citizen’s Brigade (and
attended Hebrew school at the Kaiserman JCC in Wynnewood).

And her chops have earned her a role in the AppleTV+ original show
“Dickinson” and, most recently, the role of one of three of the Fates in
the North American tour of the musical “Hadestown,” which showed
in Philadelphia from Feb. 9-20.

The musical was nominated for 13 Tony Awards in its Broadway
debut year in 2019, snagging eight of them, including for Best
Musical and Best Original Score.

In the retelling of the ancient Greek story of Orpheus’ voyage to the
underworld to rescue his love Eurydice, the Fates “control the threads
of a mortal’s life,” Odorisio said, acting as the small voice in the back
of characters’ heads, tempting them or causing them to second guess
themselves. The role is a huge departure from Odorisio’s previous part as
Ladybug in her first-grade production of “Goin’ Buggy” or her Lower
Merion High School debut as fairy queen Titania in “A Midsummer
Night’s Dream.”
However, Orodisio’s role as a Fate was a long time coming. After
missing out on the part in the Broadway production in an early 2020
It’s crazy in a really fun way. The
day times, depending on the day of
the week, are sometimes rehearsals
and sometimes exploring; sometimes
unpacking the suitcase in a hotel or
sometimes going to a gym, going to a
museum, going to a coffee shop.

And then in the early evening, head-
ing to the theater of whatever city that
I’m in and getting ready for the show.

That involves makeup, vocal warm-up,
costuming — layers and layers — and
performing into the evening and then
tucking myself in with Netflix before
going to bed at night.

Where did your interest in the-
ater come from?
I think it’s from my mother. I’m going
to go ahead and shout-out Susie
Greenspon, who had the forethought
to take me to a bunch of shows,
often musicals, in Philadelphia when
I was growing up. She would switch
off between taking me and one of
my younger sisters to a show, but I
really got bit by the bug early.

And my high school, Lower Merion
High School, has a wonderful and
very comprehensive drama club,
and that’s what launched me further
into the idea that I could pursue this
as a career if I wanted to.

What was your Jewish upbring-
ing in Philadelphia like?
My mother is the Jewish one of the
family, so she passed on the tradi-
tions to her three daughters.

I was bat mitzvahed at Martins
Run in Havertown, which was a syn-
agogue attached to a senior care
center. And I had a beautiful experi-
ence there interviewing some of the
older women, some of whom had
escaped Europe before or during
the Holocaust. That was my [bat
mitzvah] project. It was very influ-
ential to me, to speak about their
experiences. We tried to keep the highest of
the holy days alive and well, always
observing Rosh Hashanah, always
observing Yom Kippur, Passover. In
my 20s, I got to go on my Birthright
trip to Israel and had a really beau-
tiful experience seeing that country
for the first time.

There are so many Jewish giants
associated with Broadway —
Stephen Sondheim, Steven
Spielberg, who recently directed
the “West Side Story” movie.

What is it like to have these deep
Jewish connections in your
profession? Not having been brought up very
strictly in a religious capacity, most
of my connection to Judaism is cul-
turally, and that has been a beautiful
thing, to see that so easily reflected
in our cultural stratosphere.

Irving Berlin wrote the most
famous Christmas song of all time
(“White Christmas”). There are a lot
of Jewish figures that transcend that
definition, and their creations appeal
to everybody, regardless of religion.

That’s a really beautiful thing. JE
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