Doherty Makes Broadway Debut in Mary Poppins

Dover - NEW YORK — Only one word adequately describes the thespian accomplishments of Katherine Leigh Doherty, the 12-year-old Dover resident now playing Jane Banks in the Broadway production of “Mary Poppins.” And that word is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. The “super” part certainly applies.

Before making her Broadway debut in “Poppins” in October, Katherine had already performed in “The Children’s Hour” at the Shubert Theatre in Boston, “Irving Berlin’s White Christmas” at the Wang Theatre in Boston, “The Secret Garden” with the Savoyard Light Opera Company in Carlisle, “Still Life with Iris” at the Regis College Theatre Company in Weston, “Sarah Crewe: A Little Princess” at the Wheelock Family Theater in Boston, “Godspell” and “Bye Bye Birdie” with the Open Fields Theatre in Dover and “Meet Me in St. Louis” with The Weston Friendly Society in Weston.

She made her acting debut in the second grade in a musical revue with the Open Fields troupe.

For her role in “The Secret Garden,” Katherine received the Eastern Massachusetts Association of Community Theatres award for best child actor in 2005. The same year she sang the national anthem before a Boston Celtics game at the TD Banknorth Garden.

She now has both a management company and an agent representing her.

Katherine says she had reservations about acting until she saw the Open Fields’ production of “The Wizard of Oz.”

“I just loved that show,” recalls Katherine during an interview after a matinee performance of “Poppins.” “I said, ‘Wow, that would have been a lot of fun to do.’ So the next show they did was ‘Musicals Are Magic.’ I auditioned, I did it and I absolutely loved it. I had a blast.”

The acting bug didn’t just bite Katherine. It chomped on her. For her 10th birthday, she received as a present from her mother, Lauren, an acting class in New York. The teacher, Denise Simon, was so impressed with Katherine’s ability that she recommended to Lauren that she find representation for her daughter. Simon gave her the names of three companies, and Lauren chose New York-based RKS Management run by Rochelle Kishner Shulman. The 10-year-old company focuses on building the careers of child actors.

“When [Katherine] came to me, there was something in her eyes there was a spark that I haven’t seen in many clients,” says Shulman. “She was just bound for success.”

Shulman, who represents 37 clients from all over the United States, says Katherine is one of her best. “She’s got the passion. She has the ability. The voice is unbelievable. The personality is knock ’em dead. And she wants to do this,” Shulman says. “She’s also sincere. There’s nothing fake about this child and she has no conceit.

“I fell in love with her. She’s just unbelievable in everything she undertakes...I expect her to be on Broadway forever. She’s going to be a star big time.”

Through Shulman, Katherine received the opportunity to audition with five Broadway casting agents, garnering four of the five roles. The most recent was the part in “Mary Poppins.” The show is based on the 1964 movie, which itself was based on the stories on P.L. Travers. The musical includes many songs from the movie, but adds a few new ones. It also makes some alterations to the film’s story and reinterprets several numbers.

“I’ve seen the movie many times when I was little,” says Katherine, who then laughs. Aware she’s not exactly full-grown, she changes the ending to her sentence by saying “when I was younger.”

Katherine continues, “I’ve loved [‘Mary Poppins’] ever since and when I heard they were going to do this show, I went insane. I really, really would enjoy that.”

After three callbacks, Katherine got the role, which she shares with two other actresses. Nationwide auditions for the part numbered in the thousands.

Katherine performs two to four shows a week, depending on the week, and was chosen to perform the part on opening night, a significant honor.

To appear in “Poppins,” Katherine moved to New York and enrolled in the Professional Performing Arts School. That required an audition, too. She’s now in the seventh grade where classmates include children in other Broadway shows such as “The Lion King.” Famous grads include singer Alicia Keys.

With her family in Dover, Katherine has a chaperone, Morgan Carberry, a Wellesley College grad who served as her musical director in “Musicals Are Magic.” “I’m her real-life Mary Poppins,” quips Carberry.

Although Katherine has adult supervision, the decision to have her leave her family was one not taken lightly by Lauren and her husband, George Doherty, who is a partner in the Corcoran & Havlin Insurance Group in Wellesley. Katherine also has three brothers, Chip, 10, Jake, 9, and Scott, 2.

“The decision to let your child live away from home at the age of 12 for nine months is not an easy one to make,” says Lauren, “but what it came down to is she deserves a shot. We sort of went into it thinking if we let her audition she’s very likely to get the part and that’s exactly what happened.

“Before we let her audition we had to come to terms with whether or not we’d be willing to let her accept it if it were offered to her. What’s really nice is we’re more than halfway through this contract and we can look back and say we have had not one regret. It’s been a tremendous experience for the whole family.”

Helping ease consciences was the fact that Katherine had already been to New York to rehearse “White Christmas.”

“We knew Katherine could handle this because of that experience,” says Lauren. “She was in New York for four weeks and out of school for three months [with the show]. We were able to see how she managed the change in the lifestyle. She did very well. She got back into school without any issues and carried on her normal life when she came home. That let us feel more at ease in making this choice.”

Katherine’s six-month contract with “Mary Poppins” expires in April. “We don’t know if it will be renewed or not,” says Lauren. If it is, Katherine and her family are looking forward to extending her run with the show, according to her father. Her salary, which was not revealed, helps pay the rent for her New York apartment, living expenses and chaperone fees.

Katherine praises her family for their support. “I could never have had a more supportive family,” she says. “I guess it’s kind of normal to them now. ‘Oh, yeah, she’s in a show.’ It’s kind of like me doing a soccer game at home, like my brothers.”

Katherine also enjoys her relationships with her theatrical families. “I think one of the main things about performing that I love is being with people who are older than you,” she says. “Each time you’re in a show you have a new family you become a part of and that’s one of the greatest experiences in theater.

“[In ‘Mary Poppins’], you share a role with other children who you become friends with. The actors who play Michael (Jane’s younger brother) are all great to work with. Two of them are 9 and they’re just so cute. We just want to eat them up.”

Playing Jane has been fun, Katherine says, because she has the chance to show how much her character changes during the show. “She’s such a spoiled brat in the beginning and then she becomes nicer,” she says.

The actress doesn’t have any problems with her character’s British accent either. “I’ve done so many shows with British accents that it’s gotten to be just like speaking with an American accent,” she says. “It’s really not that hard for me. Since I’ve learned the lines in a British accent, I can’t really get out of it. I can only say them in a British accent.”

While acting in the show, Katherine has taken a shine to the Big Apple. “It’s so much fun, seeing the different shows,” she says. “There’s nothing like New York.”

She also appeared with fellow “Poppins” cast members on “20/20” and “The View” and met singer James Taylor, who went backstage after one of the shows with whom Katherine believes were two of his young grandchildren. He asked Katherine for her autograph for the youngsters and she signed his playbill.

For the future, Katherine says she would like to pursue a career in the performing arts. That could be in theater, movies or television. “It just depends on where life takes me,” she says. “Anything that involves acting.”

When asked what her secret to success is, Katherine doesn’t have an answer, though she does know her strengths and weaknesses. “I’m definitely not an amazing dancer at all,” she says. “My acting could go either way. My singing is my strongest point.”

Carberry has an answer to the success query. “She has a maturity and professionalism beyond her years,” she says.

Lauren Doherty has an answer also. She notes that Katherine had been accepted to play an understudy for the lead in another Broadway show, but her parents believed accepting the part wasn’t the right move at the time. So they turned down the role.

“She was incredibly good about it,” says Lauren. “For an 11-year-old to get a Broadway role and have her parents say, ‘No, you can’t have it,’ and she was fine. It was devastating to us. We didn’t know if we were leaving a lifetime of scars. What have we done to this poor kid? In hindsight, if we had accepted that role she never would [have] gotten ‘White Christmas’ and ‘Mary Poppins.’ But her reaction showed a lot of character.”

Lauren says Katherine “is a good actress who has a great voice. On top of that, it’s natural to her. Because of that, she doesn’t get anxious. I’ve never seen her nervous, so she can go into these auditions and just be herself.

“It’s a bonus if she gets a part. If she doesn’t, we don’t care. We do it because it’s fun and entertaining, but it’s not a do-or-die situation.”

Says Katherine, “This has all been amazing.” After the show, she hugs friends who come backstage and gets ready to party. At a pizza place.