When this Broadway vet won a Tony, she thanked her babysitters

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This is a CBC podcast. Hey, I'm Tom Power. Welcome to Q. So when you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? Did you want to be a ballerina, a firefighter, an astronaut?

Fun fact, and this is a true story. When I was in grade three, we had to draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up, and I drew a picture of the Pope. I had high aspirations.

Well, Casey Levy always wanted to be a performer on Broadway and win a Tony Award. And for 20 years, she was about halfway there. She was appearing on Broadway in some of the biggest musicals of our time. We're talking hair and rent and hairspray and Les Mis and Disney's Frozen, where Casey

played the original Elsa on Broadway. But it was her starring role in the revival of Ragtime on Broadway that fulfilled that other childhood dream. Beautiful voice that is Casey Levy performing back to before as her character Mother in Ragtime.

The revival opened on Broadway in 2025 and Casey's performance won her her first ever Tony Award earlier this month, and I should mention that Casey is the pride of Hamilton, Ontario. So Canada's own Casey Levy joined me from New York City to talk all about it.

Here's our conversation. How are you doing? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.

How are you? I'm not thank you for asking. I'm no pope, but I'm okay. That's a lofty dream.

I'm proud of you. I like that. I like that. I didn't want to be even just be a priest.

Nope. You went right for the top billing. I like it. And congratulations to you, my buddy.

Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you very much. Has it sunk in?

Yes and no. I mean, yes it has. It's been such an amazing few days. But yes, I'm on the other side of it where there's a bit of a crash where the adrenaline

has left your body. And now I have to get back to people's kind texts and emails and feeling slightly overwhelmed by all of that and the attention of it all. But that's the Canadian girl in me.

But man, oh man, a fabulous couple of days. So yeah, it's sinking in. The Canadian girl in you is that now that you've had this award and this prestige,

hey, you gotta start responding to some people now. I mean, I just think it's always overwhelming. I've been really fortunate in my career to have some amazing high moments.

And it also never leaves me that I'm just like a little bit uncomfortable with all that attention, you know, which I think is normal, at least for me. And it keeps you, it keeps you feet on the ground, you know?

How are you feeling going into the night? I was feeling, I was really trying to take it in because the good news about having this happen to me 20 years into my career and not two years

into my career is that I'm aware of how special it is and able to have the life experience to not have everything just like wash over me and miss it. So I was trying just to coach myself to stay present

so I could enjoy it because these are the moments in your career that you should get the chance to enjoy if you can. So of course there's nerves and overwhelm

and excitement and all of that but I was feeling kind of a healthy dose of all of that while trying to enjoy it as it happened. And I was really excited for the show, you know, so I was hoping that that ragtime did well overall and honestly the wind

Really was just getting the nomination. That was such a huge thing for me. I've never been nominated before so that alone was just such a Joy that anything else on top of that felt like icing on the cake You could kind of tell you could kind of tell that you were the favorite going in like there was a lot of talk around That you were gonna get I'm not expecting you to in any way validate that or we'd have to have a talk about the

of the Canadianess again. But, and I would under, like I think you also just have to be prepared. Like did you sort of have it in your mind,

hey, I gotta think of a few people to thank and. Definitely, I mean, I had been nominated for a couple other awards this season, which again was new to me

because I've been in the game a long time and I've had no shortage of love and, you know, attention from folks, but I haven't really been like an awards person before.

And I won one unexpectedly earlier in the season, and I didn't even realize that that was possible. I, before the ceremony, I was like, oh, this is so great.

I'll just get to sit down because Joshua, who's my co-star in red time, he's totally winning this award. And one of my agents was like,

oh no, two people win. And I was like, what? And then I did win, and I had zero prepared and I was shaking.

So I was like, let me not be totally unprepared in case this does go my way, but let me also not count on anything because there's always sort of last minute upsets

at the Tonys and I really was able to kind of temper my expectations. And when it did happen, it was very out of body, but I was grateful to have a little notepad with me

of, you know, little crib sheet of who I wanted to say thanks to. Your parents were there, by the way, I believe. And they, are they still in Hamilton?

They sure are, yeah. What did your folks say to you afterwards? After I won. You won, yeah.

Yeah, they were elated. They were just, I think, really happy and proud that we got to share it together. And I had, I said their names in my speech, of course,

but my mom kind of broke my heart. She said, thank you for giving me my name, which was just so deeply beautiful to me. What does that mean?

Well, I think because I said Mark and Lisa Levy, my folks' names in my speech, it wasn't just thanking mom and dad, it was like thanking the people that they are