When I catch up with Broadway actor/country singer/”The X Factor” contestant Rachel Potter, she’s fresh off an album-release party in New York City.
It was a sold-out bash in the Big Apple, celebrating Potter’s new album, “Stages.” But the party she’s really looking forward to? That’s coming up in Orlando.
“Orlando is my home,” she says. “I’m so excited.”
Potter, who starred as Peron’s Mistress in “Evita” and as Wednesday in “The Addams Family” on Broadway, is the latest singer in the Broadway at the Renaissance series at Orlando’s Renaissance Theatre. Her performance is Aug. 25, but it will be far from a solo affair.
The album features Central Floridians such as Jamey Ray and E.J. Cardona of popular a cappella group Voctave, and they’ll be joining Potter onstage, along with other Orlando talent — many of whom Potter has known for decades.
“It will be a love fest,” she says.
Potter grew up near Tampa but made Orlando her home in the early 2000s, getting hired by Walt Disney World, where she played Ariel in the “Voyage of the Little Mermaid” show and Belle in the “Beauty and the Beast” show at what’s now Disney’s Hollywood Studios, among many other roles.
She also found time to attend Valencia College and then transfer to the University of Central Florida — although, because of academic bureaucracy, not to the theater department. Instead, she graduated with a degree in advertising and public relations and a minor in political science.
Still, after her success on Broadway, the theater departement “claimed me” as an alumna, she jokes.
Television audiences will remember her as a Top 12 finalist on Season 3 of “The X Factor,” and she was seen across the country on a tour of “Wicked,” in which she went on as Glinda. Today’s audiences know her for viral videos and recordings she makes with Voctave and VoicePlay, another Orlando-based a cappella group.
Now living in Nashville with her husband and three children, Potter found the urge to create art once again — which led to “Stages.”
“I turned 40 last year,” she says, “and I was heading toward a solid midlife crisis. Instead of buying a sports car, I made a Broadway album.”
Her busy home life meant it was difficult to find the time to record.
“I don’t regret that,” she says of her commitment to her family. “But when you have an artist’s heart it makes you sad when you’re not doing it.”
So she made time, carving out studio sessions while her children were at school. Among the album’s songs, which the Orlando audience can expect to hear “along with a few surprises”: “House of the Rising Sun,” “Come What May,” “Maybe This Time” and “For Good,” with medleys from “Waitress,” “Les Miserables” and “Matilda.”
Orlando talent on the world stage: From Lincoln Center to Edinburgh Fringe
“No rest for a year, but it was so fulfilling,” she says. “The metaphor, of course, is that it’s the story of my life in stages that were pivotal to me.”
Among those stages were her years at Walt Disney World, where she also performed in shows such as “Finding Nemo — The Musical,” “High School Musical Pep Rally” “the “Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue” and “Candlelight Processional” at Epcot, where she sang with the Voices of Liberty.
“Disney was a huge influence in my life,” says Potter, whose late brother John portrayed Peter Pan at the same time she worked there. The two were even roommates for a time.
“He was so beloved in the Orlando community so I know a group of his friends will be at the show,” she says.
Potter remains proud of her work at Disney, which she calls “musical-theater boot camp.”
“I think there’s always been this stigma about theme-park performers,” she says. “That has to be eradicated immediately.”
Besides talent, she recalls, stamina was critical.
“I’d start my day at ‘Little Mermaid,’ get a call to move to ‘High School Musical,’ then swing into the 6 and 7 ‘Beauty and the Beast,’” she says. “Then another call: Can you come to ‘Hoop-Dee-Doo’ tonight?’ I was killing it with overtime.”
Her work with Disney has led to unexpected benefits — such as getting a kind message from Jodi Benson, the original voice of Ariel. “It’s so crazy that someone like Jodi Benson is talking to me,’” Potter says.
She has performed at Disney’s annual D23 convention and recently recorded the theme song to Fantasy Springs, the newest land at Tokyo DisneySea.
“That song actually charted in Japan,” where fans take their theme parks very seriously, she says with some incredulity. “Millions of streams.”
And she still maintains a princess connection, especially to that red-headed mermaid.
“I loved playing Belle, but Ariel will always have a special place in my heart,” she says. “I can’t even tell you how many times I sang ‘Part of Your World.’”
Follow me at facebook.com/matthew.j.palm or email me at [email protected]. Find more entertainment news and reviews at orlandosentinel.com/entertainment or sign up to receive our weekly emailed Entertainment newsletter.
Rachel Potter
What: Broadway performer sings songs from her new album alongside talented Central Florida friends
Where: Renaissance Theatre, 415 E. Princeton St. in Orlando
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
