Monteze Freeland, sitting beside Kim Exum, teases that they’d only just met. The wide smiles on the faces of the Artistic Director of Alumni Theater Company and the Broadway star tell a different story..
“We grew up together in Arena Players in Baltimore,” Freeland says, “which is very much like Alumni Theater Company, and where we created our own work. And we also every summer would do a big blockbuster musical. And so that’s where we met, when we were like, 14.”
Exum went on to Broadway, where she starred in The Book of Mormon, in the part of Nabulungi (a Tony-winning role for Nikki M. James) from 2016 through 2024).
She will make her Pittsburgh debut, with prolific theater-maker Freeland directing, in Once on This Island, an Alumni production at the Charity Randall Theater in Oakland, July 31-August 2, 2026.
Both Freeland and Exum performed in the Stephen Flaherty-Lynn Ahrens show as teens.
“Wow. It was the first musical I had ever done. I didn’t realize that until just now. Not the first show, but the first official musical I’ve ever done,” Exum says.
The actress most recently appeared on Broadway in A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Story, as the jazz legend’s third wife and long-time partner.
When Freeland asked her to appear in Once on This Island with Alumni’s mostly teenage cast, she was in the final callback phase of an audition. When that didn’t work out, she was ready to pack her bags and join her friend in Pittsburgh.
And here she is, seated in Alumni Theater’s Homewood venue, only her third trip to the city, including a tour of Point Park University, Freeland’s alma mater, and for a celebration when Freeland moved from co-artistic director of City Theatre to AD of Alumni, working alongside Executive Director Bridgette Perdue.
Having traveled here to celebrate her friend, “I knew what the theater was, and I also am semi-familiar with the theater scene, just because they hire so many New York actors to come and do theater in Pittsburgh. And because of the schools that are here that produce so many Broadway stars. So in that sense, I had some familiarity,” Exum says.
She had only one hesitation in leaving NYC: This is the first job that has taken her away from her 8-year-old daughter, who is in a summer camp.
“I prefer to not be super far away from her. So this is kind of a test to see how this goes,” she says.
Kim Exum as Nabulungi, center, with Cody Jamison Strand and Dave Thomas Brown, in The Book of Mormon on Broadway. (Image: Julieta Cervantes)
While here, she has been able to take a workout class and do some exploring, mostly in East Liberty, enjoying the Hey Babe restaurant in the Maverick Hotel.
Onstage, she will be joined by the actor Ethan Davis Butler, who worked briefly with Freeland during Primary Trust, at Pittsburgh Public Theater, and Alumni’s teen company.
“I met them. Well, I was kind of put in, in a sense. We did the first act, and they’re great. They sound great. There’s … a lot of them,” Exum says with a smile.
“We gave them name tags on the first day,” Freeland notes. He points to the show’s choreographer, LaTrea Rembert, sitting nearby.
“It’s exciting because one, we collaborate frequently as director and choreographer, and director and actor, and actor and actor so much,” Freeland says. “I knew I needed LaTrea on this piece because he performed in it at CLO a few years ago, and put it up in seven days.”
Freeland chose Once on This Island for a season that he titled “Coming of Age Stories.”
“I thought about my inaugural season here, about young people growing up, and ATC is 18,” he says. “And so we all remember what 18 was like. It was hard. But also you had a little bit of freedom, and the horizon looked bright. And so I wanted to choose shows that illustrated that aspect of life, and also, shows that centered young black women. So we did Akeelah and the Bee, and Lessons Learned, [a one-act play festival], they were all written by young Black women of our program. And then Once on This Island, once again, highlights a young Black woman going on their journey.”
Freeland recalls what the show meant to him, performing in when he was 12. “It opened up my mind and my brain,” he says. “And I don’t think I’ve stopped listening to the music since I was 12 years old. So I knew that it had an opportunity for whimsy, an opportunity for a really deep poignant story to tell as well. And an opportunity for students to perform in a show that was written [for people who] looked like them. And that was exciting to me.”
Exum brings with her the experience that few actors enjoy, having spent years in a production that is one of the most successful ever on Broadway. The show recently celebrated its 15th anniversary at the Eugene O’Neill Theater, which had become her home away from home.
“And then I got another show at Studio 54, which is down the street, I moved my stuff in cabs and walked it over to the theater,” she recalls. “It was weird because I mean, I was there and it was like I was getting a new home, but my old home was down the street. And so in the beginning of our process, I would go back, in between shows. I remember I cried once. … It felt like I was abandoning my home. And I think, I mean, Studio 54, it grew on me, and then we closed [A Wonderful World]. But I think as long as Mormon is at that theater, it will always be my home away from home. Even now, I haven’t been in the show for several years. If I’m in Midtown and I need some water or a bathroom, I stop in.”
“Wow. [Once on This Island] was the first musical I had ever done. I didn’t realize that until just now. … I do singWaiting for Life. That is in my book of songs that I was singing. But I’m phasing it out now, because I’m no longer waiting for life. I’m inside of it.” — Kim Exum
Her daughter, who has grown up with her mother on Broadway, feels very comfortable backstage.
“She just assumes that every theater we go to, we get to go backstage,” Exum shares. “And she’s not really interested in the props. She’s like, ‘Where’s the stage management office?’ I was like, ‘We can’t just go to this. We don’t know the stage managers here.’ But that’s the part that interests her.”
Listening to Exum talk about her daughter sharing in her story fits in perfectly with Freeland’s thoughts about Once on This Island, a folkloric fable, set on a Caribbean-inspired mythical island, where gods reign, and an idealistic young girl, Ti Moune (played by Katherine Bruce), makes a sacrifice for love. Exum plays the god Erzulie, the goddess of love, the principal singer on The Human Heart.
For Freeland, the show is a reminder of the importance of “passing down our stories orally and to reach out to the next generation to let them know our history. That’s what this play is about. We’re going to tell you a story. It’s going to be a little hard to hear, but hopefully you will learn something from talking with the little girl in the play, and you’ll be better for it, once you hear it.”
TICKETS AND DETAILS
The Alumni Theater Company production of Once on This Island is at the Charity Randall Theater, in the Stephen Foster Memorial, University of Pittsburgh campus, 4301 Forbes Ave., Oakland. Tickets: https://www.alumnitheatercompany.org.
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