Two-time Tony winner Victoria Clark’s career has been full of surprises. Initially intending to be a director, Clark was convinced to give acting a try by Ira Weitzman, who pointed her in the direction of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine during the original run of Sunday in the Park with George.

Though she was an understudy who never went on, it was the beginning of an auspicious career that eventually earned her two Tony Awards. Now, Clark is back on the boards, playing Joan in James Graham’s Punch. It’s her first performance on Broadway since Kimberly Akimbo, which brought home her second Tony.

It is particularly lucky that she had that second winning ceremony in 2023, since she can barely remember her first win in 2005, for The Light in the Piazza.

“I had this whole plan,” Clark shares, her voice warm and animated as she recalls The Light in the Piazza’s Tony performance. “Craig Lucas had written this beautiful little monologue for me. I was supposed to step out with my red guidebook to Florence, introduce myself, talk about my daughter Clara—it was all very controlled in my head. And then, right as the curtain went up, my mic stopped working.”

A technician handed her a large handheld mic at the last second, which overwhelmed the bulk of props she was already juggling. “I had my hands full. There were two guys crouched in front of me, one operating a Steadicam, the other handling sound. And I thought, ‘How on earth am I supposed to do this?’”

As panic set in, Clark looked around the stage for help, finding it in Kelli O’Hara, who played her daughter in Piazza. “She saw the color drain from my face, and she just started jumping up and down in her little blue dress, shouting, ‘Mother, pull it together! Pretend you’re an old-school radio announcer!’” With that, Clark rallied, channeling every ounce of her poise and professionalism into a live, televised performance. Almost everything after that moment, however, is a blur of shock.

One specific moment did break through. Clark’s 10-year-old son, Thomas, was her date for the night, and by the end of the evening at the un-air-conditioned Radio City Music Hall, his polyester tuxedo had fused with his seat. “He was very upset at that,” Clark remembers, laughing softly. “I brought him again in 2023. And then I won, it was like he’d never left the theatre. He just sat in his polyester tuxedo, bawling. Because you know who knows how hard you work? Your kids. My job is always to make it look easy, but he knows how much sacrifice it takes. And the intensity of looking out at him, to see him crying not from the heat, but from the intensity of watching how hard I’d worked…” Clark waves her hand in front of her face, overcome.

The Light in the Piazza changed Victoria Clark's professional life forever. "Before that show, I think I was seen as the sassy, funny girl who could belt and kind of sing anything," Clark explains. "I had to have several auditions for Piazza, because there were folks involved in the casting process who didn't think I had the depth or the kind of the weight to carry that part. And now look at me!" Clark laughs. "Now all I do are these serious parts, and people forgot that I was funny."

From pratfalls in Cats to hauling an accordion up and down endless stairs in Cabaret, Clark had worked hard honing her ability to turn potential disaster into theatrical delight. “The theatre teaches you that life rarely goes according to plan,” she says. “But if you keep your wits, trust your instincts, and lean on the people who love you, you can turn even the most unexpected moment into magic.”

Now, as she is eagerly embracing a new theatrical family in Punch, which is based on a shocking true story, she cannot help but be effusive.

“The cast and production design [of Punch] are just astonishing. We are galvanized around Will Harrison’s electric super-human performance as Jacob Dunne, and I have the great good fortune to have Will, Sam Robards, Lucy Taylor, Camila Canó-Flaviá, Cody Kostro and Piter Marek as scene partners. Together with Kim Fisher, Amber Reauchean Williams, and Jacob Orr, we tell the stories in and around Jacob’s life which lead to the climactic meeting scene between Jacob and James’ parents and it’s life-changing consequences. Our designers Robbie Butler, Anna Fleischle, and Alexandra Faye Braithwaite have given us the most wondrous playground to inhabit. Honestly I couldn’t be more thrilled to be working with all of these incredible artists!”

To see Clark reflect on everything that has brought her to this moment in her career, including Guys and Dolls, Titanic, Les Misérables, Urinetown, Sister Act, and so, so many more, watch her full episode of Playbill's My Life in the Theatre above.

close gallery

0 of

Photos: Punch on Broadway

Next Slide  

You may also like

• 
  Peter and the Wolf, Peter and the Starcatcher, and More Creative PLAYBILLDER Covers
• 
  Photos: Guys and Dolls at Shakespeare Theatre Company
• 
  Photos: Jeremy Jordan and Aisha Jackson in The Great Gatsby