Despite multiple Broadway leading roles under her belt and fresh off of leading the workshop of the Broadway-bound SMASH musical, Robyn Hurder says she was “terrified” during her first performance starring as Velma Kelly in Chicago.

The orchestra started playing John Kander and Fred Ebb’s signature vamp, and a solo spotlight focused on Hurder as she slinked down the steps to make her grand entrance while doing Ann Reinking’s famous choreography. Wearing a red wig and long fake eyelashes, she was about five inches away from the edge of the stage singing “All That Jazz” with the ensemble in a wedge formation behind her.

It’s one of the most famously recognizable entrances in Broadway history and one Hurder eyed for decades.

Which is why it was the “most nervous I’ve ever been onstage. You just don’t want to mess it up. You don’t want to fall down the stairs,” Hurder — who most recently starred on Broadway in A Beautiful Noise and Moulin Rouge! The Musical — told Broadway Direct by phone a few days later. “Having the spotlight shine through the lashes makes you not be able to see. All the elements together were really, really intimidating. It’s a lot scarier than I thought it was going to be.”

Hurder began her reign as one of the six merry murderesses at the Ambassador Theatre alongside Ariana Madix, who is most famously known for appearing on Vanderpump Rules. It’s a TV show Hurder had never watched before until meeting her costar, who plays Roxie Hart, because as a mom of 10-year-old Hudson, she only has time for one reality show … and for her, that’s The Bachelor.

“This is the kind of dream celebrity casting that we always want in Chicago,” Hurder says of Madix. “She’s so professional. She’s so consistent. She’s so kind. She’s so down to play.” The two only had about an hour and half together out of Hurder’s two-week rehearsal period before she jumped on stage. And every night, Madix tries to make her laugh. “I’m having so much fun because she’s ready to try something new with me.”

And something new for the traditionally blonde Hurder: She’s a redhead on stage!

“I told my wig designer, Barry Ernst, we broke the internet with the wig,” Hurder joked. It was her idea to look like “Jessica Rabbit had put her hair up into a French twist.”

Hurder’s journey to Velma started in 2007, when she was cast as Mona and understudied Roxie for six months. Bebe Neuwirth, one of Hurder’s idols, was back in the show playing Roxie (she won a Tony for playing Velma in the revival’s original cast). Ten years later, after Broadway turns in Grease and Nice Work If You Can Get It, she returned to the same track. (Bianca Marroquín and Charlotte d’Amboise both played Roxie, and Hurder often went on as their understudy.)

She had one goal in mind: Get the producers to see her star. “I knew that you needed to get your butt back in the show in order for them to really see you. And then maybe I can actually be one of these roles one day,” she said of why she stayed in the show for 18 months.

It worked. Producer Barry Weissler called Hurder up a few years ago “saying he wanted me back at the show but as Velma,” she recalls of the conversation. Then, it was a matter of the right timing. “It took a couple years, but here I am, and I made this happen.”

Replacing Madix, whose last performance was April 7, is none other than Marroquín. “She was such a wonderful master class to watch when I was a baby. It’s going to be very interesting because I’m so used to hearing her say the lines of Roxie,” Hurder says of her soon-to-be costar.

To get ready for each performance, Hurder runs on the treadmill to warm up her body and loosen her muscles for all the dancing. It’s nothing compared to what she endured during the six-week workshop of Smash, a new musical based on the two-season NBC series that’s set to open on Broadway in the spring of 2025. The show centers around a creative team putting on the fictional musical Bombshell, about Marilyn Monroe. Hurder played Ivy, an actress who stars as Marilyn. Megan Hilty played the role on TV.

“The boys were throwing me around, belting Es. My heart rate was at 140. I was dying inside. You have no idea the sensations and the pain of your chest, trying to look like it’s effortless while belting a note for 16 counts. I’ve never experienced that before,” Hurder said of dancing in five massive production numbers similar to Joshua Bergasse’s choreography from the TV series.

“It’s not like we’re just musical theater actresses. We are athletes. People have called me an Olympian. I was on the treadmill or doing dance cardio while screaming these songs,” she said of building her stamina.

While the Broadway company for Smash hasn’t been announced yet, Hurder says she “has a feeling” about the musical’s Broadway run. Coincidentally, she could be headlining a show at the same time as Hilty if the original Ivy’s upcoming show, Death Becomes Her, arrives in the same season.

For now, Hurder is living the dream headlining Chicago through June 16, 2024. “I could be playing this role for the next 15 years, you know what I mean? It’s just one of those roles that gets better with age.”