Beth Leavel has a lot to sing about.
The stage veteran, 63, is not only treading the boards on Broadway in the uproarious and uplifting new musicalThe Prom— in a role that earned her a Tony nomination for best actress in a musical — but she’s also engaged to be married again, this time to longtime love Adam Heller.
“Life is really, really good these days,” Leavel tells PEOPLE. “I didn’t think I’d get married again. You also don’t think you’ll find your way in a show this good again. So funny, the universe knocks and is like, ‘Here’sThe Promand here’s your new fiancee.’ And it’s just a thrilling, thrilling time.”
Leavel has been through the Tony Awards show circuit before, with two previous leading actress nominations before and one win, forThe Drowsy Chaperone.
That prize was back in 2006, 13 years ago. Meanwhile,The Promis Leavel’s 13th Broadway show (other credits include42nd Street,Mamma Mia!,Young Frankenstein, Elf, andBandstand). Oh, and there are 13 performers making their Broadway debuts inThe Prom.
All of this leaves Leavel callingThe Promher “Lucky No. 13.”
“It never gets old, she says. “Performing on stage, you get the opportunity to connect with people directly in ways no other medium can match. I feel what the audience feels as they feel it. When I leaveTheProm, I can feel the energy around the block. It’s a fabulous musical comedy in addition to the fact that it has such heart and such a message that needs to be heard throughout the country. It shifts people. That’s what theater does. And that just is a remarkable feeling to know I’m a part of that.”
Beth Leavel.Ilya S. Savenok/Getty
Beth Leavel and Michael Potts inThe Prom.Deen van Meer
The role was created for Beth, making her the only of her fellow best actress in a musical nominees to have such an honor. “There’s a lot of Beth in Dee Dee,” she says. “I like to think I’m not a bitchy narcissist, but apparently I have easy access to that part of me. And to have permission to do that is so satisfying.”
This June, the show is up for 7 Tonys, including best musical, best book of a musical (Bob Martin and Chad Beguelin), best original score (Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin), best director (Casey Nicholaw), and Leavel’s best actress nomination.
Beth Leavel (center) alongside Christopher Sieber, Angie Schworer, Brooks Ashmanskas, and Josh Lamon inThe Prom.Deen van Meer
Beth Leavel.Walter McBride/WireImage
And then there’s thatotherlittle event Leavel has coming her way: her wedding to Heller.
No date has been set yet (“He’s an actor who is up in Hartford right now doingThe Flamingo Kid, so we never see each other,” Leavel jokes. “That’s why we’re not married, we don’t have a day off together!), but Leavel isn’t stressed.
She and Heller were dating for 10 years beforeshepopped the question this past September.
“It wasn’t a very romantic thing,” Leavel recalls. I was at Actor’s Equity Pension, Health & Welfare office talking about my retirement fund, just trying to be knowledgeable about that, and I just looked at Adam and said, ‘We have to get married.’ And he said, ‘I didn’t think you’d ever want to get married again,’ and I said, ‘Well I didn’t thinkyou’dever want to get married again.’ So we had all that energy”
Later that night, Leavel made it more official. “I got down on my knee and proposed to him about why I wanted to get married. And then he got down on his knee and proposed to me about why he wanted to marry me,” she says. “It was really sweet. I don’t know what I would do without his support.”
Adam Heller and Beth Leavel.Walter McBride/Getty
Both met while doing a show together in San Diego. “It was kind of love at first sight. It’s a small community, so we knew of each other, but we never really worked with each other until we did a show calledDancing in the Dark,” she explains. “It was supposed to come to Broadway, it didn’t work out. But we did.”
And Leavel didn’t take the reins when it came to the proposal. She also took over to pick out her engagement ring.
“I picked it out,” she says of the double band gold diamond ring. “I’m not going to wear something the rest of my life I won’t like. He went with me, and we tried them on — he had an opinion. But I chose it.”
“We went to Macy’s!” she adds, naming the spot ofThe Prom’s history-making Thanksgiving Day performance. “I used my coupon!”
The Promis now playing at New York City’s Longacre Theatre. The Tony Awards air Sunday, June 9 (8 p.m. ET) on CBS.
source: people.com
