Jessica Vosk is ready to sleigh this holiday season.
As she wraps up her acclaimed run in Broadway’s Hell’s Kitchen this week, the powerhouse vocalist is getting ready to embark on a holiday concert tour that highlights her festive new album, Sleigh. She’s also ramping up her Instagram interview series, Vosk in the City, one of the year’s hottest and most hilarious viral sensations.
Vosk, who began her career working on Wall Street before quitting to pursue her Broadway dreams, boasts an illustrious resume that includes shows like The Bridges of Madison County, Finding Neverland, Fiddler on the Roof, and perhaps most iconically, Wicked. She’s the living embodiment of why trusting your gut to follow your passions is a risk worth taking.
As she prepares to bring her holiday concert to Boston next week, Vosk chatted with me about her new album, what audiences can expect from this string of shows, joining Cheyenne Jackson at his headlining Carnegie Hall debut, the genesis and future plans of Vosk in the City, bidding farewell to Hell’s Kitchen, bringing the animated series Hazbin Hotel to the real-life stage, visiting Ariana Grande on the set of the Wicked film adaptations, and much more.
Congratulations on your new holiday album, Sleigh! You had previously released a holiday EP, A Very Coco Christmas. What inspired you to create a full Christmas album at this point in your career?
To be honest with you, it was the fans. I kept hearing from people over and over again, “When are you going to actually do a real Christmas album? We need a full holiday album!” I listened, talked to my team, and said, “How do we really get the best people involved in this album?”
When I did my EP, it was during COVID. I recorded it — no joke — in a closet in my musical director’s house in upstate New York. We fancied her little guest bedroom closet into a recording studio. In between getting tested for COVID to make sure we were negative, I’d go there and record a song. That’s why it ended up being four songs.
This time, I wanted to do something fun, bring in great guests, and work with a team I like to call “the Avengers of recording.” We made it happen somehow in between doing Beaches, getting back surgery, and doing Waitress. I have no idea how.
Ok but when did you sleep?
That’s a great question. I wonder still to this day if I do, but I like to think I try.
How did you approach curating the tracklist? Were there songs that felt essential to include from the start?
I definitely wanted “Mary, Did You Know?” because I think it’s one of the most beautiful musical arrangements in history. Lyrically, I’m always joking, “Guys, Mary didn’t know. Did she? I don’t think she did.” As a non-religious person, I still find a lot of beauty in secular holiday songs like that. I went to my amazing musical director, Mary-Mitchell Campbell, and we sat down and said, “Okay, what are our dream songs?”
I love doing different versions of things. I said that I wanted to do a Bette Midler-ified, big band version of ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You.’ I wanted to try a Bridgerton version of Ariana Grande’s ‘Santa Tell Me,’ like you’re walking into the show with a really lush string solo.
We whittled down a long list. It took time because I wanted so much on there. We also asked, “How do we put songs together?” That’s how “Do You Hear the Faithful?” was born: “Do You Hear What I Hear?” meets “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” “Let It Snow/Winter Wonderland” with Neil Patrick Harris came from that too. And I knew Ingrid Michaelson and Sara Bareilles’ “Winter Song” had to be on there, period. It all came together really well, and I don’t have any regrets, which is great!
What do you hope listeners take away from Sleigh when they hear it for the first time?
I hope they hear something in the arrangements that feels new and exciting. I called Ariana Grande to tell her I wanted to do this Bridgerton-ified version of “Santa, Tell Me,” and she was so into it. I called Alison Krauss and said, “Hey, I want to do a folky, mandolin version of ‘Mary, Did You Know?’ Can you help me with that?”
I want people to think, “I absolutely know this song. I’ve heard it before, but I’ve never heard it this way.” That’s the goal. And doing them like that in concert is even more fun, because you see people sit up in their seats and go, “Oh, shit. I didn’t even know it could sound like this.”
How did you go about blending your theatrical background with the more intimate, seasonal tone of a holiday record?
Honey, I don’t! I put it all in there. I put it all in the blender, and we see what comes out!
We just finished our first tour stop in Atlanta. Putting this show together for the holidays, I wanted to include a lot of Broadway homage and some pop songs I love that audiences either know me for or love to hear. And the response from that first show was gangbusters. It was so cool. It made me realize we did the right thing and chose the right set list. It really is a fun blend.
In Boston, because we have a larger band and we’ll be firmly in December, we’re doing a little bit more of the actual Christmas album — more lush arrangements and a few more songs from Sleigh. But you’re still getting Wicked, Chess, Waitress, a little gender-bent Dear Evan Hansen. My set lists always changes, sometimes day of or night before. That’s my ADHD, babe.
I also have this show called Vosk in the City, a street show where I interview people. It’s gone super viral. I’ve decided to make Boston my first Vosk Out of the City. I want to include anybody who gets a ticket to the show — I’m going to do a little filming at the meet-and-greet, and I think it’ll be really fun. To me, that’s what community and the holidays are about. My shows are meant to be a safe space for whoever wants to come and enjoy them, and that feels like an awesome cherry on top.
How do you hope this concert will connect with people during the holiday season?
If I’m being super honest, our world sucks right now.
Absolutely.
The U.S. is in the midst of a shit show. Everyone knows it. I am a fierce, fierce, fierce ally of the gay community and of women’s rights. Everybody who I am a fierce ally for is being attacked from many different angles, and everybody feels very scared.
So for me, my concerts, they’re supposed to be about 90 minutes but they usually run two hours. Sorry about it!
You’re giving the people what they want!
I know where my bread is buttered! But anyway, I want people to feel like they can be exactly who they are — authentically themselves in a room for two hours — and not have to worry about what’s going to happen next, or feel the anxiety of social media, or feel like they need to check the news.
I think art is healing. Music is healing. The fact that we have a chance to do something like this in a beautiful room together, for one moment in time that will never happen again, gives people a memory they can keep, holiday or not. I’m hoping it makes people feel like there’s a little bit of hope at the end of the day.
You’ll also be performing with Cheyenne Jackson at his headlining concert at Carnegie Hall next week.
You bet your bottom dollar, I am!
What do you enjoy the most about singing with him and can you tease what folks might expect to hear from you two?
He and I have known each other since I left finance and did a concert version of West Side Story at the San Francisco Symphony with him and we just fell in love. To my dismay, he is gay, so he didn’t love me in that way, but now we’re besties.
He invited me to sing with him, which is such an honor. It’s his Carnegie Hall debut, which is so special and important, and he deserves it so much.
We have an obsession with the same band. I can’t say who they are, but we’re singing a very specific song that’s heavy on harmony. It’s not Broadway, and it’s not what people might expect to hear from Cheyenne, but it is exquisite. I’m so excited I get to do this with him. He’s amazing.
And I also love to look at him — he’s not hard to look at.
Later this week, you’ll be wrapping up your legendary run in Hell’s Kitchen on Broadway. What does it feel like to be saying goodbye to this production? How did working on it change you as an artist? Is there anything you learned from this experience that you’ll carry into future projects?
Oh, gosh, that’s a great question. This was a total surprise, something that truly fell in my lap. I got a phone call: “Alicia Keys would like to meet with you.” I said, “She can’t possibly be thinking of me. She must be thinking of Jessica Chastain.” I was like, “What are you talking about?”
I’ve been with the project for a year, and it was extremely challenging. I’ve never been a first replacement before. You’re so used to hearing one person sing the show, and that brings its own challenges. Sure, I’ve played Elphaba, but so has every kind of Kermit-the-Frog green. The difference is I stepped into Wicked 15 years later. With Hell’s Kitchen, I stepped in not even a year into their run.
It’s also not a typical Broadway show. It’s a pop sing, R&B sing. I’m in an incredibly diverse cast that to be honest, doesn’t really exist on Broadway in that way. Rarely are you the white person in a cast full of Black and brown people — it’s usually the other way around. That’s been a gift for me as far as learning culture and being enveloped in a semi-autobiographical story. I spent time with Alicia’s mom. I spend a lot of time with Alicia. It’s a gift. The entire thing has been a gift.
It’s very bittersweet to leave. It almost doesn’t hit you until the day before. I remember saying last night, “Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m done on Sunday.” Everyone from Michael Greif, who’s a director I’ve wanted to work with forever, our musical supervisor Adam Blackstone, Alicia herself, her mom, the whole team she’s brought in — it’s been a real labor of love for me.
What I’ve learned about myself is that I can do really difficult things I thought I couldn’t. It gave me a chance to show people that on top of singing, I have a lot of fun acting choices in me. It’s been really cool to have people come to the show and say, “I knew you were going to sound great and I was going to love your voice, but I didn’t realize how much you would affect me in this role.” That, for me, could not be a higher compliment. I will leave with that.
Speaking of both the holidays and Hell’s Kitchen, you and the cast just released a new single, a cover of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” called “Hell’s Kitchen’s A Merry Little Christmas.” How did this rendition come together and what was it like recording it with your cast members?
It’s just four of us on the track (Yolana Adams, Amanda Reid, Phillip Johnson Richardson and I), with Adam Blackstone producing. He’s such an iconic producer, and it was his and Alicia’s idea. They said, “We want to do a mash-up of Hell’s Kitchen and ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.’” So as a Judy Garland purist, I said, “I guess I will.”
It was really cool. I love being in the studio. If I could spend all my time somewhere, it would be in a studio. That’s really my happy place. It was a very fast process, and Adam worked his tail off to get it done and out. And it sounds great!
I agree, I’ve listened to it so many times already! As one of the vocalists on the animated musical series, Hazbin Hotel, what was it like to go from the recording studio to performing these songs live at the Majestic Theatre for Amazon Prime’s recent Hazbin Hotel: Live on Broadway concert special?
It was fuckin’ nuts! The songs are so sticky. Sam Helt and Andrew Underberg are brilliant writers. The fact that my song “Gravity” has around 60 million streams is quite insane. That show is the gift that keeps on giving. We are well into season 4 recordings already, and season 2 just came out. And what a gift to be able to use every curse word in my lexicon. As a Jersey girl with a sailor’s mouth, that fits me perfectly.
The Hazbin Hotel fandom is truly amazing. I’m very excited because I’m stepping into some Comic Cons next year for the first time. I wasn’t able to do any this year because of my Broadway schedule, but next year it’s on, and I’m thrilled. That’ll be really fun!
You mentioned this before, but we have to talk more about your hilarious Instagram series, Vosk in the City. It feels like the Billy on the Street replacement we’ve all been waiting for. What inspired you to start interviewing strangers, and what has been your most memorable interaction so far?
I got a phone call from someone who runs a beautiful organization called Maestra. They had a gala and said, “We want to open with a really funny interview section, and we thought you were the craziest person to do it.” I said, “I think you mean unique” so of course I said yes and did it. It was born out of that. I had no vision of doing a woman-on-the-street type show until that happened. Then my castmate, the illustrious Tony Award–winning Kecia Lewis who was at the event, said, “Something’s wrong with you, and I need to produce this.” So we sat down and said, “Okay, how do we make this a thing?”
It’s only a couple of months old — not even six months — and it has gone so viral. It has pushed me into the world of brand deals and collaborations. I kind of hope and pray every time we do an episode that I get the most unhinged people, and I always do.
One of my favorite interactions? I like to push the envelope, I don’t know if you know this about me. I like to kind of go there. Whether I’m doing an episode on Wicked, Epstein, Trump, RFK, Pride, and all kinds of things. So I was doing an episode on Trump and I ran into to a young woman and said, “Trump thinks the election was stolen. Can you believe it?” And she said, “Well, the election was stolen.”
On camera, you can just see how my brain glitches. My response is just, “Oh! Oh!” Then I pan down and look at her pedicure, and you can see on my face I’m disgusted. It might be my favorite interaction ever. She went on and on about how the election was stolen and all these things, and I walked away knowing, “This is going to go viral.”
Every Black person in my cast was like, “Girl, the way you read her for filth and her pedicure.” Every white person was like, “We were so shocked when she said the election was stolen.” We really hit all angles with that one. It still thrills me to watch it. I secretly still rewatch it at night. After these interviews my brain goes dead and I don’t remember them and people send them to me like, “Oh my God, Jess, this interview you did with so-and-so,” and I’m like, “Oh… oh yeah!”
It’s one of my favorite things. In my life right now, it’s the place I feel most authentic. I don’t care what you say to me or how you react to me. I have fun out there. I do it for the joy it brings me, and I’m so happy people have gotten on board with it so fast.
So many of my friends who aren’t even into Broadway have sent me clips being like, “Have you seen this?”
That’s also really fun, because it has brought people who didn’t know who I was to see me in Hell’s Kitchen after seeing Vosk in the City. That makes me feel like, “Okay, this is a whole new brand that’s growing.” That’s a gift. It means I’m doing something really fun. So that’s been really cool and I’m excited to branch out to new cities on this tour.
Going back to Wicked, as the defining stage Elphaba for a whole slew of gay men, what are your thoughts on Wicked: For Good? What was your favorite thing about the movie?
Sweetheart, I’ve not seen part two yet! What is time? With Hell’s Kitchen, I have had none. But of course I can’t wait to see it.
I have a very close relationship with Ariana and I’m incredibly proud of her. I’ve seen some clips because of her and she blows me away. She’s worked so hard. I visited her in London when they were shooting, and she’s always been so locked in and wanting to do the best job and be the best version of herself. I’m really proud of her.
Same with Cynthia. I can’t tell you how many messages I’ve gotten saying, “Cynthia did Jessica’s ‘No Good Deed.’” And you know what, Alex — if that is remotely the truth, I am honored.
It is most definitely true, because I had that exact thought in the theater. I was like, “Oh my God, she did the Vosk!”
I hear it every day! To be known for the two years I spent there, and to have an impact like that is very special. It’s surreal. I feel like I’ve contributed to a part of history that will always live on, and that’s pretty badass.
So between Broadway, concerts, voice acting, and recording, how do you keep your voice healthy and strong?
I’m a vocal health freak. I’m sober, so I don’t drink at all. I’m a massive proponent of warm water, especially when I’m doing a show. It has to be warm, bordering on hot, which probably makes a lot of people gag, but it’s the best way to keep your throat happy.
I do a very minimal warm-up and stay quiet during the day, especially if I’m doing eight shows a week. I hydrate with things like Liquid I.V., I take Grether’s Pastilles like I’m a meth head, and I don’t scream or yell.
My voice was trained classically early in my life, and that’s helped me maintain it through all of this, because it’s a lot. I’m pretty crazy about that stuff.
Looking ahead, what kinds of projects or collaborations are you hoping to explore next?
I’m looking forward to doing a lot more Vosk in the City. We’ve signed with a brand agency, which is a huge deal for us. There’s going to be a lot of fun stuff coming everyone’s way with my spin on everything.
I’m really looking forward to a couple of projects I can’t talk about yet that have come across my calendar for next year, where I actually get to make choices about what I want to do, and that’s amazing. One is with Scott Hoying from Pentatonix. There’s really cool stuff in the works.
I also have a concert I’ve been working on, “The Music of Laurel Canyon.” I love that decade of music. I’ve been able to rope in people to chat about the next steps, like Cameron Crowe, and Mary-Mitchell Campbell, who’s working on it with the Colorado Symphony. They’ve put charts to it. My goal is to build a show around how that music was created and the stories behind it.
That sounds amazing!
It’s one of my favorite shows I’ve ever done! I’ve done so much research on that decade of music. Having the chance to chat with Cameron Crowe, who I think is the defining voice on the Almost Famous/Laurel Canyon/Joni Mitchell era, is really cool. I also chatted with Michael Greif about it. I’m trying to get my ducks in a row on the producer side of things, because to me, it’s the Great American Songbook. Every time I do it, people of every age respond. even if they have no idea who the Mamas and the Papas or Linda Ronstadt are, they leave going, “Can I have that set list?” Then you get their grandparents saying, “I saw Linda Ronstadt.” That’s the gap I hope to bridge with this show. I’m hoping to do it in New York as a limited run somewhere.
Well I will be first in line for tickets! Thanks for everything, Jessica. I can’t wait to see you in Boston next weekend and hope you have a fabulous last week at Hell’s Kitchen!
Thank you so much, honey! This was fantastic. See you in Boston!
Get tickets to see Jessica Vosk in Boston on Saturday, December 6 at the Berklee Performance Art Center. Visit jessicavosk.com for additional tour dates and tickets.
PHOTOS | Jenny Anderson / Matthew Murphy