It must be a pretty heady feeling to be just 18 years old, starring in a brand new musical and be one of only five girls in the world invited to train in the music program of a prestigious university. But to have to put that opportunity aside because said musical is on its way to Broadway, while squeezing in the lead role of a network pilot—well, welcome to the life of Malibu teen Veronica Dunne.
She just completed a month’s run of the new Joe Iconis and Robert Emmett Maddock rock musical “The Black Suits” at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City. Iconis is a rising, 32-year-old composer known for writing the song “Broadway Here I Come” on season 2 of the canceled TV series “Smash.” A similar path could be in store for Dunne.
“I was accepted into the music program at Carnegie Mellon,” Dunne said. “It’s the top musical theatre school in the country and an incredible honor. But I can’t go this year. We’re hoping to get this show to Broadway.”
Mixed in with Dunne’s arduous audition process for Carnegie Mellon this year was graduation from Oaks Christian School, filming for a lead role in a Nickelodeon pilot, and an intense, five-week rehearsal marathon for “Suits,” in which she frequently received 25 new pages a day while the playwright and director carved the show into a stage-ready original.
To Dunne, it’s where she belongs. Her father, Murphy Dunne, is a veteran film and TV actor and plays piano in a blues band. She herself knew she wanted to be on stage from age four, a couple of years after her mom first took her to dance class. She sang and danced through childhood, her strong soprano voice being tapped to play the lead in a local production of “Once Upon a Mattress.”
“I didn’t understand why I was funny,” she said.
Her stage work got her some television and film roles, but she commands a certain presence onstage. Her voice was so strong that she was one of the top two non-classical voice winners of the Music Center Spotlight Awards last spring.
“If you win, you get to sing at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in front of 3,000 people,” Dunne said. “It was pretty crazy.”
But it’s the possibilities for “The Black Suits” that have so consumed her, she made the decision to put off attending the Carnegie Mellon program.
“CM feeds directly into New York musical theatre,” Dunne said. “You meet a lot of casting directors and the training is impeccable. But going now would take four years out of my life when I have the chance to create an original role for a show we hope lands on Broadway. With this show, I’ve made connections I don’t want to lose. It’s a really hard decision. But they are going to keep the [Carnegie] position for me for a year. We’ll see what happens.”
Dunne seems to have a philosophy about her career that is advanced for her years. When asked what roles she would like to see herself play someday, she rattles them off immediately.
“Fanny Brice in ‘Funny Girl,’ Glinda in ‘Wicked,’ and Lauren in ‘Kinky Boots’ are my top three,” Dunne said. “But if I can include others, it would be Annie Oakley in ‘Annie get Your Gun,’ and Clara in ‘The Light in the Piazza.’”
No supporting roles for this young star, please. She’s got the voice to carry a show.
She says it was “thrilling” to work in a show where the role was being re-written to accommodate her own strengths and quirks.
“This experience has been astounding,” she said. “I was so honored to be picked to play a character Joe Iconis created. He’s such a brilliant writer and director. And so humble. I’ve found that the most talented people I work with are also the most humble and kind. They don’t need outside validation.”
“Suits” will require some assiduous re-working—local reviews were lukewarm—so Dunne sees a creative slog ahead.
“I’ve been really blessed, so I work hard,” Dunne said. “And it’s paying off so far.”
