If the major networks churned out sitcoms the way they did in their heyday, Jennifer Simard would have been lost to TV years ago. That the landscape of network TV has changed so drastically has been a gift to Broadway, allowing Simard the chance to light up stages in nine musicals on the Main Stem.
Her latest outing, the Tony-nominated Best Musical Death Becomes Her, earned Simard her third Tony nomination May 1.
"I've been having some issues with my cable, so I texted my manager last night, and
I said, 'Would you mind calling me and letting me know? I'll just be in
bed,'" a grateful Simard told °ëµºÌåÓý the morning the 2025
Tony nominations were announced. "And he did, and that's how I found out!"
Simard, one of the greatest musical theatre comedy actors to ever grace the Broadway stage, attributes her gift for getting laughs to her late mother, Yvette. "It makes me feel closer to her. I actually have a hair of hers in the locket that I wear as [my character] Helen Sharp in the beginning, and I kiss it in my first song. She would always use her humor to deal with life's challenges, and that's what I try to do."
Death Becomes Her, it should be noted, picked up 10 Tony nominations May 1, joining Maybe Happy Ending and Buena Vista Social Club as
the most Tony-nominated productions of the season.
Simard's Death Becomes Her co-star, Megan Hilty, was among those 10, nominated in the same category. "I'm just so thrilled to share this honor with my partner, my right arm," Simard shared.
In addition to
Simard and Hilty's nominations, the new musical is also nominated for Best
Musical, Best Original Score (Julia Mattison and Noel Carey), Best Book
of a Musical (Marco Pennette), Best Scenic Design of a Musical (Derek
McLane), Best Costume Design of a Musical (Paul Tazewell), Best Lighting
Design of a Musical (Ben Stanton), Best Direction of a Musical
(Christopher Gattelli), and Best Choreography (Gattelli).
In the new musical based on the 1992 film of the same name, Simard and Hilty play two rivals who gain eternal youth via a magic potion with some gnarly side effects. Offstage, however, the two Broadway favorites, thankfully, have a much healthier relationship. "It is one of the greatest honors of my life to be the Abbott to her Costello," Simard said. "We are a team. You can't separate us. Only we know what has gone into this. Backstage, before we come out and bow every night—I'm so happy to share this moment, not only with my co-star, but with my friend."
Simard also said that her favorite moment in the musical is one she shares with Hilty. "It involves the sleeping pills that I take out and hand to Megan," Simard said through laughter. "When I explain to her why I take sleeping pills, I love it, and I love Megan's reaction to it. It's one small moment in Act Two. But to me, it's just so funny, and it sums up our relationship in two jokes, essentially. And I love it. I love it!"
Simard has previously received two Tony nominations in the Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical category: as the perpetually dieting Sarah in the 2022 Tony-winning revival of Company and a scene-stealing nun with many bad habits in the 2016 debut of Disaster! But her role in Death Becomes Her has earned the New Hampshire native her first Tony nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical, a distinction that is not lost on the performer, who has been working on and Off-Broadway for three decades.
"The enormity of Leading Actress is really starting to hit me and sink in," Simard revealed. "I don't think I really internalized it because, to me, it's always about the work. But now that you say it, the enormity of that has really hit me in this last week. I am so overwhelmed by—I'm gonna cry—[sharing] this incredible honor with my friends. I've known [fellow Tony nominee] Audra since she was Audra Ann McDonald. I've known her since we were 23 years old. We sang at St. Clare's Hospital together. I met her and Norm Lewis on the same day, while we were singing with Seth Rudetsky. So all these years later, I feel like we should sing 'I'm Still Here' together. We're here, and it's just incredible!"
Simard, who was overjoyed by Death Becomes Her's 10 Tony nominations, was honest in saying "there's always [nominations] that you wish were there. I have to say, my song, 'Let's Run Away Together,' one of the reasons it's so good is because of Doug Besterman's orchestrations." Besterman was not nominated, something Simard feels was due to the fact that "the season is just so glorious and so packed. I'm sure the nominators were pulling out their hair! It's an embarrassment of riches. But it's important for me to say that my mother was my softball coach and really taught me the meaning of teamwork, and there's not a single member of the Death Becomes Her team that hasn't made me the best I can be. And so I'm grateful to every single person.
"[There are] so many people who punctuate and accent every choice that I make," Simard continued, "whether it's Peter Hylenski's sound, or, like I said, Doug's orchestrations, all of my scene partners. It takes a village. I'm honored to be a front person for all of the people behind the scenes."
When asked the biggest challenge of playing the death-defying role, which sees her with a hole in her torso and fighting Hilty onstage while belting to the heavens, Simard answered: "I think, if I'm being honest, it's calibrating the marathon and sprint that I have to train for every single day since we opened in the fall. Opening in the fall is a whole different animal because you really do have to run a sprint and a marathon at the same time. It never lets up. There's always something. Anyone who runs those races will tell you, you're never going to have a sprinter running a marathon and vice versa, but we on Broadway do. We are athletes, and it is just trying to figure out that calibration on a daily basis, so that the goal is to always be at work eight times a week. That has been the biggest challenge."
And, in such a crowded season, why does Simard think theatregoers should come to the Lunt-Fontanne for Death Becomes Her?
"I distinctly remember Brian Stokes Mitchell and Charlotte St. Martin saying, right after we realized the pandemic was shutting down Broadway for a long time, that it was going to take four years for Broadway to really come back. And, [Death Becomes Her] opened four years later. We opened last fall in 2024, and it is my opinion that Death Becomes Her is exactly the kind of show we've needed since the pandemic. It is a big Broadway musical in the truest sense of the form, and I love it, and the audience loves it. It's just a fun, escaping, hilarious night of theatre, watching incredible dancers and singers and actors.
"It just doesn't get more Broadway than Death Becomes Her!"
Jennifer Simard backstage at Death Becomes Her
Jennifer Simard backstage at Death Becomes Her
Jennifer Simard backstage at Death Becomes Her
Jennifer Simard backstage at Death Becomes Her
Jennifer Simard backstage at Death Becomes Her
Jennifer Simard backstage at Death Becomes Her
Mark Bailey Capalbo and Jennifer Simard backstage at Death Becomes Her
Mark Bailey Capalbo and Jennifer Simard backstage at Death Becomes Her
Mark Bailey Capalbo and Jennifer Simard backstage at Death Becomes Her
Jennifer Simard backstage at Death Becomes Her
Jennifer Simard backstage at Death Becomes Her
Jennifer Simard backstage at Death Becomes Her
Jennifer Simard backstage at Death Becomes Her
Jennifer Simard backstage at Death Becomes Her
