Former Broadway star brings ’Soul’ to Sarasota Orchestra Pops concert

For years, Capathia Jenkins has intermingled her career as an actress and singer on and off-Broadway with film and television roles along with an increasing number of symphony concerts like the one that brings her to the Sarasota Orchestra.

She’s had such success with programs like “She’s Got Soul,” which will be performed April 19-20 as part of the orchestra’s pops concert series, that she has finally made a major decision about her career path.

“I had been thinking about this for a while, but I have officially closed that chapter of my life. I’m no longer interested in theater and television and film,” she said in a recent telephone interview. “This is probably the first interview where I have said this and when you come up in this business, you never say never, you don’t say no. ‘Don’t close that door’,” she said. “It took me a long time to say it out loud.”

Jenkins began singing in her church choir as a child in Brooklyn and made her Broadway debut in Frank Wildhorn’s “The Civil War” in 1999. She followed that with roles in the Burt Bacharach revue “The Look of Love,” “Caroline, or Change” and “Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me” and closed out her career playing Medda Larkin in the hit musical “Newsies.”

Now she’s focused on her concert programs, which she has developed with conductor Lucas Waldin, who will lead the Sarasota Orchestra. In addition to “She’s Got Soul,” her concert programs include a tribute to Aretha Franklin and another in which she joins singer Tony DeSare performing music by Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. She also is a frequent guest soloist with symphonies for major July 4, Memorial Day and other holiday concerts.

Waldin has been a guest conductor with many orchestras and worked with such artists as Carly Rae Jepsen, Ben Folds, the Canadian Brass and Buffy Sainte-Marie.

Performing with orchestras “doesn’t get old,” Jenkins said. “At my core, I’m this little Black girl from Brooklyn and when I stand on stage or in the wings in my cute dress and my hair and makeup and I hear an orchestra begin an intro and it’s all for me, it’s the most magical, amazing, extraordinary feeling. I can’t think of words to describe it. It’s pinch-me time. This is what I get to do and I love it so much.”

A shift from Broadway to concerts

Jenkins said she first started developing the concert programs to fill in the gaps between stage shows.

“When I was getting into theater, between the theater jobs, I might have been singing backup for somebody or going into the studio or recording something for commercials or television and film, trying to hold together a living,” she said. “You are building those muscles to do a few different things which ultimately get you through.”

She uses all her past experiences, including her classical voice training and her acting skills, to guide her through each program. Each song is an opportunity to create a story and a character to play.

“I love storytelling, the nuance in my voice, finding different colors. Belting and bringing the house down is one part of the puzzle,” she said. “The interesting thing is to lean into the lyrics and tell the story and that has served me well. For me, story is everything.”

During “She’s Got Soul,” which had its premiere in 2022 with the Houston Symphony, Jenkins and the orchestra will perform everything from Adele and Anita Baker to Michael Jackson, Sade and Stevie Wonder hits.

“We will celebrate these songs and singers all while the audience gets to know more about me, growing up in Brooklyn,¨ she said. “They get some insight into who Capathia is while jamming and singing along. It really is a party.”

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The concert features songs by singers she looks up to “for different reasons and different things they bring to the world. In Whitney’s case, for me as a singer, it is a challenge, which I welcome, so I can feel accomplished on the other side of it.”

She doesn’t try to imitate the hit makers. “It’s about the essence of what they do, taking the audience along. So I may not sing it exactly like the artists, but I hope I really settle into the essence of the artists.”

Jenkins said while she may be leaving theater behind, she treasures her experiences, and particularly enjoyed her time working with Martin Short.

“He is everything you would imagine,” she said. “He is one of the funniest, most creative smart men I’ve ever known and worked with and he is also such a good human. It was really a gift. I think about those backstage moments and he would navigate with someone having a meltdown or how he would make choices to rise above things and lead with kindness and grace. That’s a lesson I have taken from him and use that for my own way navigating this often crazy business.”

‘She’s Got Soul’

Capathia Jenkins with Sarasota Orchestra Pops, guest conductor Lucas Waldin. 7:30 p.m. April 19, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. April 20, Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, 777 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Tickets are $41-$95. 941-953-3434; sarasotaorchestra.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: From Adele to Chaka Khan: Sarasota Orchestra Pops has soul