Picture it: early ’90s, a cruise ship sailing down the coast of Mexico.
I was but a squirrely young thing on my first RSVP cruise rushing to the cabaret room for a big night of entertainment. The lights inside had already dimmed when I arrived at the door. Not wanting to cross the spotlight to get to my seat, I held back. Pop star Laura Branigan was the advertised talent that night, but she’d canceled due to illness. Word hadn’t made its way around the ship about her replacement.
I wasn’t alone in the lobby. A casually attired woman with curly shoulder-length hair stood beside me holding what looked to be a stack of sheet music. Perhaps she was the pianist? A talent manager? I could hear the emcee speaking but couldn’t make out the words.
“I hope they got someone good,” I said to the woman, who flashed me a dazzling smile.
As those words escaped my lips, the emcee cried, “Give it up for Betty Buckley!”
“I’ll give it a try,” said the woman I had failed to recognize as Buckley. She sashayed through the door and onto the stage as the crowd roared approval, leaving me to chew on the foot I’d stuck in my mouth.
Anyone who has been fortunate to be in a cabaret, theater, or concert hall when Buckley is singing will remember it for the rest of their lives. You can feel it in your bones. I certainly felt it that night and many times since as one of her legion of devoted fans.
Some 30 years later, the Tony-winning actress is in Provincetown for a concert on Sunday, June 23. The show kicks off a new town hall concert series produced by impresario John McDaniel and the Post Office Cabaret. Buckley was mum when asked what she’ll be singing but coyly offered that it will include songs from some of her 10 Broadway shows.
Everyone who dreams of becoming a star has indulged in the fantasy of arriving in New York City and immediately being cast in a Broadway show — but that actually happened to Betty Buckley. Only 21, she was offered the role of Martha Jefferson in 1776, destined to be a big hit, on her first day in Manhattan.
“I had a lot of performing experience from age 15,” says Buckley, shrugging off the notion of being an overnight success. “I’d done a lot of musicals at our regional theater in Fort Worth and the theater department at TCU. I was a professional.”
Now 76, Buckley is still showing her indefatigable Texas can-do spirit. Just before Covid, she headlined a national tour of Hello, Dolly! that was razor sharp. DC Theater Scene wrote, “Buckley’s larger-than-life presence was a reflection of Dolly herself, who cannot (and should not) be contained, controlled, or restrained.”
Buckley’s IMDb page is loaded with film credits and appearances in episodic television.
“They call me when they need a lady with white hair,” says Buckley, but it’s much more than that. Buckley brings gravitas to every part she plays.
The notable directors who’ve cast her in their projects include many famous names: Brian De Palma, Roman Polanski, and Woody Allen. In Tender Mercies, she went toe-to-toe with Robert Duvall in his Oscar-winning performance and belted out the Oscar-nominated heartbreaker “Over You.”
But relatively few people know that from the early days of her career Buckley has been a teacher, coach, and mentor to many other actors. Her approach to singing and acting with authenticity is centered on using meditation to increase mental acuity.
“Exquisite acting comes from exquisite focus,” Buckley frequently reminds her students. She traces the impetus to dive inward to the stress of her early experiences in Hollywood.
“I’d done Carrie and one season of Eight Is Enough, and I was just totally burned out,” says Buckley. But after being introduced to a meditation center in Southern California, she says, her life changed. “I experienced major growth spurts in my acting and singing. My work just got better and better from the meditation.”
It’s an approach I saw first-hand when, during the pandemic, Buckley moved her classes online. As a teacher, she can be intimidating. When those cornflower-blue eyes lock onto yours, well, they can stop you in your tracks. I would sometimes try to stall with a question about Cats or why the gym teacher got killed at the end of Carrie. It was pointless, because Buckley is impervious to distractions.
In the endless game of one-upmanship among musical theater aficionados over who has seen which female star in her greatest triumph — practically a contact sport in Provincetown — my ace has always been that I saw Buckley play Mama Rose in Gypsy.
The New York Times wrote, “Her strong, supple voice is infused with a bottomless longing, which Ms. Buckley plies here in everything from an especially poignant version of ‘Small World’ to a dazzlingly executed version of the climactic ‘Rose’s Turn.’ ”
At the performance I witnessed, Buckley tore a strand of pearls from her throat at the most dramatic moment of “Rose’s Turn,” sending beads clattering into the pit. The gasp from an audience already on the edge of their seats was audible over the thundering orchestra.
“It was a faux pas,” says Buckley, blushing and laughing at the memory.
“But was it really a faux pas,” I ask, “or was it the most electrifying moment in musical theater ever?”
“It was a mistake,” she says. “It happened one other time, but that time the pearls flew into the wings and hit my dresser in the face. That was the end of that. It was too dangerous.”
Big Star
The event: A concert with Betty Buckley
The time: Sunday, June 23, 8:30 p.m.
The place: Provincetown Town Hall, 260 Commercial St.
The cost: $65 at postofficecafe.net
