There’s a dark stage, with a few handfuls of dirt scattered here and there. But as the lights come up, what first looks like an empty landscape transforms into a perfect tableau of a Kentucky skyline at dawn. Thus begins Floyd Collins, the newest musical at the Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater about a trapped caver in the 1920s who became a media circus. And while the six-time Tony-nominated folk musical, which originally opened off-Broadway in 1996, might seem like a strange place to find a breakout indie pop star, for Lizzy McAlpine — who plays the title character’s free-spirited sister, Nellie — it’s become a public teaching ground.
“I’m still kind of learning things every time I go onstage,” McAlpine, 25, says over Zoom. “Being Nellie onstage, she’s just opened me up so much. She’s so free, just so openhearted. She’s off in a corner, dancing and singing to herself, and she just doesn’t care. It’s so freeing to do that every night. And it feels like it’s really crossed over into my real life.”
Even if you’re not an avid listener to McAlpine’s music, you will probably still recognize the artist’s 2023 single “Ceilings” — which became a breakout hit on TikTok, complete with a sped-up edit that had everyone from Jimmy Fallon to Kylie Jenner posting clips of themselves sprinting at full speed to McAlpine’s breathy voice. The far-reaching melancholy of musical theater has always been front and center in McAlpine’s work, which layers a lyricism of desire on top of string-heavy indie-pop arrangements. The music of Floyd Collins (created by Adam Guettel) leans more heavily into the indie-folk side of McAlpine’s wide range of influences. There’s even a steady supply of yodeling. But as Nellie, McAlpine melds perfectly into Guettel’s country rhythms, maintaining an ever-rising soprano that manages to scale drastically while singing about everything from Collins’ entrapment and the wide sky the characters wish they could touch.
The self-proclaimed theater kid spoke to Rolling Stone about making her Broadway debut, actually living out being older and wiser (the name of her sophomore album), and why she really wants people to stop asking about that unreleased TikTok snippet.
Lizzy McAlpine and Jeremy Jordan in FLOYD COLLINS
Joan Marcus*
What has it been like to have your Broadway debut go from a dream to a reality?
Obviously, I’ll be excited till the day I die. But honestly, I’m kind of just in it now. It was really surreal on opening, and especially the first preview that we did was so crazy. But now that we’re in a groove and we’re kind of just smooth sailing, It’s not as crazy anymore. But it’s still crazy.
Nellie — Floyd’s sister — has just gotten back from an asylum when Floyd gets stuck in the cave. She’s incredibly complex. How did you go about connecting with her as a character?
I love [Nellie] so much. I feel like I see a lot of myself in her. It’s interesting, there’s this whole arc of “She’s just gotten back from the mental asylum,” but it’s never really explored. And I think that’s on purpose, because I don’t feel as though she is crazy. I think she probably was just sent there because it’s the 1920s and she’s a young woman, probably in the corner of the field singing to herself. And they were like, “No, we can’t have that.”
What parts of yourself do you see in her?
I feel like, in the music industry, being surrounded by men all the time. I don’t feel understood as much as I would like to. I don’t feel listened to. There are the men who make me feel heard, whatever, but for the most part, it’s pretty tough to feel like my voice is heard. So it’s been interesting to play that same exact dynamic in this show, because [Nellie] knows what has to be done, and she tries to speak up, and no one listens to her. And I’ve experienced that in my real life so I’ve just tried to bring myself to her. Because she’s very human and complex and so porous. She soaks up all the energy around her, and she notices everything. She’s one with the universe.
Nellie gets frustrated by that onstage and its 1926, so in your personal life, experiencing that same thing has got to be so annoying
It’s just the plight of being a young woman in spaces that are dominated by men.
How has your experience pushing back against that changed as you’ve matured as an artist?
There’s definitely not as much [frustration] as when I was first starting. But I feel like I’ve really narrowed down the people in my life, and I’ve really cut out a lot of things that haven’t been serving me. So I’m left with the most amazing collaborators and people who truly understand me and make me feel heard. And that’s been a game changer.
What’s changed?
Well, sometimes when I find myself in those situations I go to this place of “OK, we can do whatever you want.” My gut response is to make myself smaller. And I’ve tried to combat that by just speaking up for myself, which is hard. It’s hard, especially in situations where you’re with someone who you really care about and respect. It’s all a process, and it’s all a journey, and it’s going to be hard all the time — but I feel like I’m getting better at it.
Good collaborators are such an important part of the creative process. What’s it like working with Jeremy Jordan?
Incredible. He’s just a tank. He is insane. He’s such a pro — it’s just fascinating to watch. It’s really special to be able to learn from him. And, yeah, he’s just so talented and so nice and it feels like we’re all a family. Which is so fun and kind of what I miss the most about theater, just the community.
You were a theater kid, right?
In high school, yeah. I mean, I am a theater kid.
How does that history fit into your performance?
It’s the reason why I started doing theater in the first place. I was super shy in high school. So shy I wouldn’t talk to anyone. It was very scary for me, and theater helped me in coming out of my shell and becoming a real human, basically. And I feel that happening now. I’m learning so much from this experience, and whether that has to do with being Nellie and who she is, or just like being on a stage and doing this again, it really feels like it’s opening me up.
The company takes their openign night bows
Chasi Annexy*
Were there any notes you got during voice lessons that you feel like you’ll take with you on your next tour?
I mean, every way that I’ve learned to take care of my voice. I never warmed up before, which is crazy now, because I’m like, “How could I ever sing without warming up again?” When I was on my last tour, right before this started, I wasn’t warming up and then I would go onstage. And now I’m starting to pay attention to that, and it’s really fascinating, honestly.
You’ve said in past interviews that you have a complicated relationship with social media, but you decided to vlog your audition process for Floyd Collins. How did you make that decision?
Posting something online is so vulnerable. I don’t know, it’s scary. Before I post anything, I have this moment where I’m like, “Oh, my God, people are gonna perceive this. Do I want people to perceive this?” Sometimes, I’ll go and make a whole Instagram post, and then I’m like, “I actually don’t think that anyone will care about this.” So I delete it. I don’t know if I’m posting this for me, or for other people. So I’m trying to do what feels right and not think about too much.
With [the vlog] I wanted that for posterity. I wanted that for my archives and to keep that experience forever so I could watch it back. This has been a dream of mine for so long, and so many of my fans know that. So I feel like I wanted to give them that, for them to experience this with me.
With that anxiety and love of your fans in mind, how does it feel when they constantly beg you to release old snippets of songs — especially songs that really drew eyes to your accounts? The most obvious example is your unreleased song, “You Ruined The 1975.”
It doesn’t bother me and I don’t really pay attention to it, because if I wanted to release it, it would be out by now. The 1975 song was never meant to be anything other than a stupid video on Tiktok. I didn’t even finish the song. And sorry, but I don’t like it. So it’s not going to come out.
I feel like that’s also why I stopped posting original stuff on TikTok because I don’t want to deal with that again. That was crazy. That was my first viral video on TikTok and I still get people commenting asking for the song. It’s kind of exhausting. Truly, the stuff that I want to put out, I will put out, and the stuff that doesn’t come out. It just doesn’t come out for a reason.
Does that pressure make you feel weird when other songs go viral? “Spring Into Summer” is having a real moment right now on TikTok. (It’s been used in more than 150,000 videos.)
I’m obsessed with that, loving that. My last album really means so much to me. Which is crazy, because I feel like with my past work, a year after it’s come out, I’m kind of over it. But Older (and Wiser) was so important in my journey of figuring out who I wanted to be as an artist and what I wanted to sound like. It felt like a breakthrough in my sound and my style. So to see it now getting its moment is really special to me.
How has your family reacted to your casting and performances?
They are so blown away. My mom has come three times so far, and she’s coming more times.
She’s obsessed with it. She loves it. She cries every time. My grandparents came on Saturday. And my grandma was the one who really introduced me to musical theater. She took us to see my first Broadway show when I was, like, eight, and we used to go every year to see a Broadway show in May. It was surreal to have her there, because she’s the person who introduced me to theater in the first place. That was pretty full circle.
Being on Broadway is such a taxing schedule — have you managed to find time to write?
Honestly, it is pretty taxing, but touring is so much harder for me. It doesn’t feel like it takes everything out of me to do this show. I feel like I have a wall between me and the audience. There’s less of me onstage and I’m giving all of myself to you. I’m a character. So I feel like writing has been pretty easy during this process, because it’s something completely different.
The complexities of Adam’s music have really been inspiring to me. I’m singing it every night pretty much, and so it’s definitely seeped into my brain. I come home and I’m just inspired. So I write whenever the inspiration hits. I’m still trying to figure out what it all means, but I think I’m writing some cool stuff.
With all this creativity swirling around you, do you have any idea of what or when fans can expect new music from you?
I don’t know. I’m figuring it out right now as we speak. I’m kind of just going with the flow. And once Floyd is over, who knows? I’m really just taking it day by day.
