Ann Harada pointing to the Pile of Poo emoji on her smart phone

Ann Harada in Avenue Q

Ann Harada, who made her Broadway debut more than 30 years ago, is philosophical about the latest character she portrays. “Sometimes you get to play glamorous roles,” she says, “and sometimes you get to play a pile of poo.”
That’s not a metaphor. Harada is playing the Pile of Poo emoji in Emojiland, which debuted at the 2018 New York Musical Festival now running Off Broadway.

I talked to the performer  for an article in TDF Stages, “Why Ann Harada is excited about her crappy new job.” She is best known for her roles as Christmas Eve in “Avenue Q” and the not-so-evil stepsister Charlotte in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, but her comic chops and Broadway belt has bought her a long and varied career, as these photographs  and videos attest. (click on the photographs to read the sometimes extensive captions.)

Ann Harada as the stage manager Linda in the TV series “Smash.” Although she didn’t sing and barely spoke in that role, it turned out to be “super rewarding. Even now when I meet stage managers, they are always very grateful that I represented them on stage. When I went to London and saw my friends in Hamilton, the Hamilton stage managers were so excited to meet me. I was just flabbergasted.”

Ann Harada in Seussical (second row, far left in the yellow pillbox hat, waving.) I knew I could sing even as a kid, but I did not know that anybody wanted to hear me particularly I loved doing this musical. To be in a big musical, to get to dance on stage. I’m not a dancer so just to be even to be able to learn that choreography I was so proud of myself Just because I was in an ensemble with a show and I had to you know kind of step up to that level of performance

Harada in 9 to 5. “Dolly Parton is the loveliest person alive. She was so kind and generous to everyone. She really set the tone. It was thrilling to work with Alison Janney and to see Stephanie Block and Megan Hilty sort of really come into their own . I had such admiration for everybody.” A lesson she took home from that musical, which run only for about four months on Broadway but was a hit in London: “Sometimes you do a show and it does not seem like anybody cares, and then it goes on to a huge success, so you never know.”

Ann Harada in “Brooklynite” along with Matt Doyle, Tom Alan Robbins, Grace McLean and Andrew Call

Harada as Madame Thénardier in Les Miserables: “Oh, that was a dream to be able to do that show. ..I never thought I would ever be considered for it.”

Harada as the not-so-evil stepsister in Cinderella. “Cinderells was the most fun I ever had in my life. We worked on it for a really long time before we go produced so we all got to know each other, reading the various drafts of the show And by the time we got to sttge it we were all really good friends and it was very fun to sort of see it come to life. I just though the design for that show was so beautiful, both the set and the costume and everything about it I thought was so beautiful…. I don’t consider Charlotte as evil, you know. Delusional absolutely. But more comic than nasty.”

Off Broadway in The Kid.

“Avenue Q put me on the map.”

the cast of Emojiland

As for her current role, “there is nothing wrong with being a pile of poo, Poo is necessary for people to live in the universe right? I mean it is just part of what it is to be alive….In this show, Poo is a truth teller,” she says. “Ultimately, she is not disrespected because of who she is.””

Below her performance in Bryant Park in 2013 followed by my interview with her then, in which she reveals the part she would really like to play.