It’s a five-minute walk between the theatres where married actors Erika Henningsen and Kyle Selig are each starring on Broadway.
Henningsen plays Sandra Dee in the new Bobby Darin biomusical, Just In Time, at the Circle in the Square Theatre. Her husband is performing alongside a troupe of singers in Sondheim’s Old Friends at the Friedman Theatre. The couple wed on May 22, 2023, in New York City after starring together in Mean Girls on Broadway.
Henningsen, who holds the title as the youngest Fantine in Les Misérables’s Broadway history, made her Broadway debut in 2015. She went on to originate Cady Heron in Mean Girls, followed by a role in Tina Fey’s Girls5Eva. Selig made his Broadway debut as a replacement in The Book of Mormon in 2015, followed by Aaron Samuels in Mean Girls, and then Jacob Jankowski in last season’s Water for Elephants.
“I think people often say it’s really hard to be with an actor if you’re an actor,” Henningsen tells Broadway Direct over video chat. She’s sitting next to Selig against a white wall with their dog barking in the background of their Midtown Manhattan apartment. It’s their first time doing a joint interview. For the last few years, jobs have taken them across the country to Los Angeles and to Puerto Rico, where Henningsen filmed the new series The Four Seasons, now streaming on Netflix.
“It’s not challenging to be married to an actor. It’s just challenging to be an actor. To have somebody who understands the sort of emotional roller coaster and logistical roller coaster is kind of a relief, actually,” she says. As actors, do they like feedback from each other on their work? Henningsen absolutely does!
The pair dissect their marriage now that they’re often passing ships in the night doing eight shows a week. Almond croissants, blueberry muffins, and dog walks are part of the couple’s weekly rituals before matinees. While they usually head to their shows separately, a rainstorm made them realize they need an additional umbrella at home.
What was your reaction when you found out you’re going to be in Broadway shows at the same time?
Kyle Selig: It didn’t happen on the same day. We had had this wild spree of the last year and a half or so traveling. I was in New York doing Water for Elephants. Erika was doing these conventions and filming things in all these different places. So it was actually like this big sigh of relief.
Erika Henningsen: I got [the part] right before the holidays, so we were able to go visit Kyle’s family for Christmas and say we’re going to be on Broadway this spring. That’s always thrilling for parents, because both kids were going to be in the same city for once.
The openings of both shows were pretty close, too.
EH: I couldn’t even go to his opening-night party because we were in previews and tech.
KS: She came to my invited dress rehearsal and [turns to Henningsen] I went to your first preview.
EH: I feel like Kyle’s first dress rehearsal was pretty accurate, because they had done the L.A. tryout. But our show changed a ton in previews.
Did you rehearse together?
EH: Actually, we did.
KS: Well, there aren’t a lot of lines in my show.
Well, you have lyrics.
KS: These songs I’ve known for decades, though. So there wasn’t a lot of practicing. But Erika — we did a lot of scene work.
EH: I have this monologue in Act 2 that is about, like, five years of Bobby Darin’s life. We try to condense a lot of information into this monologue, and it changed no less than 25 times. I got line notes every single day. I came home, and I was like, “We’re not going to bed tonight until I know this down pat.” So we ran it for like 15 minutes. And then, of course, I came in for preview number 18, and they had changed it all over again. I feel like that was because our show was changing because it’s an original musical.
KS: It was great. I learned a lot about RFK.
EH: That’s not going to make sense to people who haven’t seen the show. [Turns to Selig] Just say you learned a lot about Sandra Dee.
On show days, what’s your schedule like?
KS: It’s a big priority of mine to be moving in the morning, because the eight-shows-a-week schedule is so taxing on the body and the voice that it just doesn’t work unless I sweat or move my body. We have a gym. I go there five, six days a week.
EH: Every morning begins with walking our dog. Our dog wakes us up at 7:30 a.m. to get fed. Then she’ll go back to bed for a little bit. Both of us, if we feel rested, if one person maybe went out to Broadway Bowling a little too late, then that person gets to sleep in.
KS: Whoever has the earlier show, the other person walks the dog.
EH: We have a ritual on Sundays. We call it Pastry Sunday and we go to our favorite coffee shop and get an almond croissant and blueberry muffin with the dog.
Do you walk to the theatre together?
EH: We live in Midtown right now, so we’re able to walk. I don’t know if it’s because our days have been so busy, but we’re usually going to the theatre from something else.
KS: We did the other day, though. There was a torrential downpour, and we only have one umbrella.
EH: It was a monsoon.
KS: I walked her to her theatre, and then I took the umbrella.
EH: Why do we only have one umbrella?
KS: We can certainly afford —
EH: Whoever reads this, give us an umbrella sponsorship.
Do you walk home together?
EH: Kyle’s show gets out a little bit sooner than mine. At our show, Jonathan [Groff] always has at least five people in the audience who are there to see him and he always invites us to hang out with him downstairs in his dressing room. So Kyle will pick me up in front of one of our favorite wine bars in the neighborhood. We’ll meet there and walk home together. We kind of debrief on whatever happened that day.
When are date nights?
KS: It’s been tricky. Until last week, her night off was Sunday and my night off was Monday, so it’s been ships passing in the night. Now that we’re on the same schedule, I believe date night will be Monday evenings, and it will be about getting out of Midtown because we’re here all the time.
Describe each other’s roles.
KS: That’s a good question. When Erika comes onto the stage, it’s such a moment, but it brings depth to the Just in Time story. It’s definitely formatted where Act 1 is very fun. And then Erika brings this weight to it, this depth to Bobby’s story that really enters when she enters. I don’t think people have gotten to see you do that kind of thing. It’s cool to see you bring that onto a Broadway stage.
EH: Honestly, I don’t trust sometimes that what I’m doing is working, until Kyle sees it. I trust my directors. I love them. I always ask for a note, and [Kyle] gave me a note with a laugh that I wasn’t getting. He was like, “Just say it deadpan. Don’t move your body, don’t break eye contact.” Then I got a laugh [from the audience] the next day. A lot of people would never want notes from their partner. I love it.
KS: I would prefer to not hear your notes.
EH: I overly talk too much, whereas Kyle is very concise, to the point.
KS: You did have a note for Old Friends.
EH: I did have a good thought for Old Friends, but wait, let me tell you about Kyle’s role. In Mean Girls, he was really great at supporting the female cast. In Water for Elephants, he had to be this really dramatic leading man. In Old Friends, he gets to show off his voice and plays some of the most comedic roles for the men in the show. I really enjoyed being in the audience and knowing the audience was watching him do something that I’ve known he could do.
What was the note?
KS: It was during “Being Alive” —
EH: Oh, I did have a good note for this.
KS: Your note was to really embrace it when you take your solo line [“Somebody pulled me up short and put me through hell”]. That’s everybody’s moment to stand out. Take it.
Erika, what’s your favorite number that Kyle does?
EH: “Agony,” because I feel like he should have played that part in multiple productions at this point. I also loved him in the West Side Story [“Tonight Quintet”]. It is criminal that he hasn’t played Tony in West Side Story yet. Those are all roles I think Kyle should play at some point, in their entirety.
You’ve of course already done Mean Girls together. Is there another musical you’d like to star alongside each other in?
EH: I remember I told [Kyle] we wanted to do A League of Their Own: The Musical, so you can play Tom Hanks.
KS: A League of Their Own: The Musical … Ooh we can do, just off of the Tom Hanks thing, That Thing You Do! The Musical …
EH: Ooh, That Thing You Do! The Musical, where I’ll be Liv Tyler and you’ll be Tom Hanks?
KS: There we go.
EH: That’s what we would do. OK, but a musical that already exists? I mean, we really should play Jenna and Dr. Pomatter [in Waitress]. Somebody should probably make that happen, like, quickly.
KS: Before it’s too late.
EH: That’s, like, the one we would both enjoy doing.
KS: Right, that would be fun.
EH: There are shows that I would enjoy doing that Kyle may not, and that Kyle would enjoy doing and I may not. Such as [A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum]. You really want to do Forum.
KS: [Laughs.]
EH: But I think we would both enjoy doing Waitress. That’s our answer.
