Photo: Anthony Matula MA2LA
An Evening with Megan Hilty at Town Hall
by G.W. Mercure
Performing inside a network television studio or behind the established and heady armor of a Broadway production is a game of managed illusions: close-ups can be re-shot, flubbed lines can be edited away in post-production, and a scripted character offers a convenient mask to hide behind. But stepping onto the historic stage at Provincetown Town Hall with nothing but a live piano, a microphone, and an enthusiastic and attentive audience requires a different type of creative engine. It requires an artist willing to drop the theatrical affect, completely.
For Megan Hilty, navigating that transition is a deliberate choice. Best known for her breakout turns in Wicked, 9 to 5, and Smash, Hilty has spent years operating at the peak of high-concept entertainment. Yet, as she prepares to headline Town Hall on July 5th, she arrives without a rigid, over-rehearsed script. Instead, she leans into the fragile, high-wire intimacy that this performance demands.
“You’re always playing to a different size house crowd, and it does change things,” Hilty says, reflecting on how she alters her vocal architecture depending on the room. “Right now, I’m doing a residency at the Café Carlyle, and that room is like one of the most fancy living rooms—with a whole bunch of tables—that you can imagine. It’s extremely intimate. Even though about half of the songs I’m doing there will be in my setlist for P-town, it plays differently, and I sing them differently, because people are literally right next to us. We’re all very, very close, so I’m not going to perform it the same way in different venues. Making connections in an environment like that is the whole draw to a tiny room.”
That rejection of a standardized, cookie-cutter routine extends to how she structures her live set. Where many visiting stars lean on a protective, unchanging repertoire to guarantee a predictable response, Hilty treats her setlist as a flexible, live conversation. Backed by a tight-knit band that includes her husband (musician and composer Brian Gallagher) on piano, she relies on an intuitive shorthand to read the temperament of the room in real time. “Assembling my band so that they are not only incredible musicians, but some of my very best friends—and also my husband—means we have a shorthand,” she notes. “We can change things up if we feel like the audience isn’t feeling what we’re doing. We can just change things up right there.”
That willingness to take risks led her to crowdsource her repertoire on social media, resulting in the addition of a devastating, unvarnished power ballad from the musical Waitress—a show she has never performed in. “I did something I don’t normally do: I asked Instagram, ‘Hey, what do you want to hear me sing in these shows?’ I got some really great requests for a song from Waitress [a 2016 Broadway show featuring music by Sara Bareilles]. I’ve never done Waitress before. It’s ‘She Used to Be Mine.’ It’s her big power ballad. I have one spot in my set that’s reserved for a real tender moment, and that’s the one that has gone into it. It worked at the Carlyle, and it worked in London. Very different venues, but it worked on both levels.”
What prevents this intimate, stripped-back format from feeling exposed or under-fueled is a hard-earned sense of professional authority. Hilty admits that commanding a solo stage without a character’s script to hide behind used to be an object of dread. The confidence she brings to Town Hall this July is the product of continuous, unyielding mileage.
“I used to be terrified of these things, but now I love it so much because it’s one of those rare things as a performer that you are in complete control over,” Hilty says. “I’m at a point in my life where—it’s not that I don’t get nervous, I think getting nervous for everything is a healthy thing—but I feel now that I’m a 45-year-old person, I feel very solid and very comfortable in my skin. I can only hope that adds to a level of comfort for the crowd. The audience feels that even if things go off the rails, I got this, and I’m gonna bring it back.”
That sense of grounded presence is why Hilty keeps returning to the tip of Cape Cod, a place she discovered 15 years ago while performing alongside Seth Rudetsky. For an artist who spent three intensive years committing her life to the grueling development machine of the musical Death Becomes Her, these intimate summer engagements offer a vital space to recalibrate both her craft and her sanity.
“Getting to do these concerts gives me so much freedom to be with my family and my kids. I sacrificed a lot of time with them to do that show, so I’m just really grateful that I get to do these concerts and that people still come,” Hilty says. “Anytime somebody whispers the thought of going to P-town, I’m like, ‘Yes.’ I don’t care what it is, I’m in.”
Megan Hilty performs at Provincetown Town Hall, 260 Commercial St., Sunday, July 5, 8:30 – 9:45 p.m. For tickets ($54.83 – $160.40) and information visit ptowntownhall.com.
