Sheridan Adams scored the gig of a lifetime. Then, she vanished

The Age

3 days ago

Hundreds of kilometres above where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet, science teacher-turned-astronaut Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger woke to the sounds of Defying Gravity. It was April 9, 2010, and NASA's STS-131 crew, which had successfully docked Space Shuttle Discovery with the International Space Station two days prior, would be conducting the first of three spacewalks on the two-week mission.
That flight controllers down in Houston, Texas had pressed play on the Stephen Schwartz tune for those in orbit would not be surprising to fans of Wicked. Pun aside, what better way to capture a 'thrillifying' venture into the vacuum of space, sans spacecraft, than with a power ballad including lyrics 'everyone deserves the chance to fly' and 'they'll never bring us down'?
Like a spacewalk is the apex of an astronaut's career, performing the role of Elphaba Thropp is a thespian's pinnacle. Securing the gig is not easy; expertly navigating the soaring belts and contrasting growls of what's commonly considered one of the most challenging songs to sing, while literally flying across the stage strapped to a hydraulic lift system, is only part of what's required to credibly portray the captivating, complicated and universally beloved character night after night.
From the moment a casting director decides an actress has the chops to pull it off, her life has been irrevocably changed. A role of such magnitude is not something one simply walks away from. Unless you have no choice.
Something bad was happening to Sheridan Adams.
After 16 months touring as Elphaba across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane with rave reviews, Perth audiences finally got the chance to see Adams, and Courtney Monsma 's Galinda 'Glinda' Upland, up close in December. But Adams' first performance in the West Australian capital would ultimately be her last, despite the season booked until February plus a planned encore in Singapore.
Loading
It started, weeks earlier, in Brisbane; Adams would rush on-stage in green paint, knitted cap atop her head and suitcase in-hand, and proceed to perform a show where her voice was 'the best it had ever been'. But sometimes, the opposite would be true.
'I knew something was awry, but I had no idea that it was an injury,' Adams tells me in between sips from a water bottle seemingly bigger than her head.
By the time the 27-year-old Melburnian whisked out of the wings at Crown Theatre Perth's opening night, it was with the definitive knowledge that something was terribly wrong. Nonetheless, the show would go on.
Adams completed the almost three-hour-long performance. Then, she vanished.
What was wrong with Adams is something that's 'not the end of the world', as she takes great pains to tell me, when it comes to the wider context of, well, current events.
But for someone whose lifeline relies on the use of their instrument, an extensive vocal injury can feel world-ending.
'Because it had never happened to me before, and it's not spoken about, it was really hard. I went to a very dark place.'
Sheridan Adams
What happened to Sheridan Adams?
'It's quite traumatic. It's quite difficult because [your voice is] a part of you, it's often a part of your identity,' Adams says.
'When that's taken away, you really have to rediscover who you are and rediscover what your relationship is with your voice.'
It's estimated that more than 25 per cent of Broadway performers have been diagnosed with a vocal injury during a show's run. It's rare, however, for a performer to take extended time off, and rarer for a vocal injury to be cited as the reason. Adams says Megan Hilty, who recently disclosed she would be taking a leave of absence from Broadway's Death Becomes Her due to vocal injury, inspired her to speak out.
With the support of production company Crossroads Live Australia, Adams' team and her loved ones, Adams spent months away from the stage, recovering from what she describes as a muscle bleed in her larynx. Symptoms can include hoarseness, pain while swallowing, frequent coughing, voice breaks, and more.
Loading
'It was really daunting and really scary ... I've never been in a show like this before. I'd never had a lead role like this,' says Adams, whose experience before her casting was mainly college productions, fringe shows and professional ensemble or cover roles. 'Because it had never happened to me before, and it's not spoken about, it was really hard. I went to a very dark place.'
I'm not good enough, I'm letting people down, I'm not going to be able to do this ever again constantly rang in Adams' head. Fellow performers reassured Adams a return to work is possible, privately disclosing their own previous vocal injuries.
Laser surgery, steroid injections, yoga and 'a lot of silence and not talking' were essential for Adams' rehabilitation.
As was deleting social media.
It's all about popular
It's safe to say the role of Elphaba comes with baggage; Wicked has been a consistent box office smash since the stage show opened at Gershwin Theatre in 2003.
But before Jon M. Chu's film, its fandom was mainly kept to those who had the means to get themselves to New York, London or a touring production, or crafty theatre nerds who knew the secret two-word code that unlocks a bounty of YouTube bootlegs.
Once Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande 's casting was announced, that changed. Suddenly, the intense passion, and ownership, over the story, songs and characters were no longer limited to the fringe.
From LEGO sets, hairbrushes and pyjamas in store windows to social media, Adams couldn't walk down the street or open her phone without seeing Wicked.
Algorithms were suddenly flooded with footage and fan-art of Erivo and Grande – and, as anticipation amped during the film's globe-trotting press tour, of past and present cast from stage productions beyond Broadway and the West End, including Australia's Adams and Monsma.
'It was like my workplace was following me everywhere I went,' says Adams, who found it 'exciting' as someone who had realised she wanted to pursue acting through song mid- Over the Rainbow while auditioning for the role of Dorothy Gale in a high-school production of The Wizard of Oz.
But it also meant that four weeks after Erivo and Grande walked the Yellow Brick Road in Sydney, anyone with an internet connection noticed when, 14 years after she last played the part, Wicked alumna Patrice Tipoki flew into Perth for an emergency cover of Elphaba. Comments from fans asking where Adams was, no matter how well meaning, were particularly hard for her to read.
Loading
'I didn't talk to anyone about it,' Adams says. 'I really secluded and isolated myself from the world and from everyone.'
Trusting her instincts, closing her eyes, and taking a leap
In what made for an awkward conundrum in London on the night of Queen Elizabeth II's death, Wicked opens with the jubilant exclamation: 'Good news, she's dead!'
This weekend, however, audiences in Seoul will instead see Monsma's Glinda and the cast of Wicked 'rejoicifying' the return of their Elphaba, with Adams taking the stage in the role for the first time in eight months.
Similar to her first turn as the 'Wicked Witch of the West', Adams will be halfway through the show's South Korea tour when Wicked: For Good is released in cinemas this November.
What's different is that now, in addition to her regular hydration and steaming routine, Adams is equipped with a series of semi-occluded vocal tract exercises, and a new perspective on vocal rest – helped, in part, by the fact she will perform six shows a week, with Zoe Coppinger performing the remaining two in South Korea.
'Coming back from this, it's probably been the hardest and most rewarding thing I've ever done in my entire life,' says Adams, fresh off her first week of rehearsals.
'If you're going through this, you're not alone ... it doesn't mean that you're not a good singer … or that there's something wrong with you. It happens, and you can come back, and you can step back into a role like Elphaba.'