Thrilled to see all the love for Judy Kuhn on here, although I can't agree with the original poster's reservations about her acting. Having in the last couple of years seen her as Fosca and in her current Tony-nominated performance in Fun Home, I was as blown away by her subtle, nuanced, quietly powerful acting as I have been by that extraordinary voice.
I first fell in love with the voice on the OBCR of Chess -an entrancing and fascinatingly different take on a role that I had previously thought to be the property of Elaine Paige who I'd seen playing it in the West End. As a student in London I must have seen Kuhn at least a dozen times in Metropolis (I had a friend in the ensemble) and that was when I realised what a stunning actress she is. The show itself was pretty schlocky, albeit hugely watchable, but there were/are some terrific tunes in there and the female lead ( a sort of saintly revolutionary type leading the underground workers to rebellion, who is then cloned into an evil robotic double......for any one who never saw the Fritz Lang silent movie) was massive, vocally and physically.....really the kind of role that could justify having an alternate, not that JK did. She was utterly mesmerising....warm, heroic and heartbreaking in the main part, then thoroughly eerie as the clone....you could not take your eyes off her. Thrilled as I was with her, I didn't realise just how easy she made it look until she left the cast and I saw her replacement (the show lasted barely a month after her departure) who was a perfectly serviceable performer but made one uncomfortably aware of just what hard work it was, and who sort of disappeared into the pipes, wheels and ladders of Ralph Koltai's extraordinary machine-like set, something that JK never did. I was a fan then and I'm a fan still.
Aside from being away from Broadway to raise a family, I do wonder if the reason why she hasn't become a bigger star is that she makes the actual performing look so easy. She is so natural and unaffected as an actor that the craft goes almost unnoticed, and that amazing voice -which apparently can sing virtually anything- just pours out of her like breath, whereas other more "diva"-like performers deliver magnificently but leave you in no doubt of the effort they're putting into it. Kuhn's "Days And Days" is an object lesson in how to put over a song......it is awesome (in the true sense of the word) but it comes completely from that character in that moment. If it's a star turn it's because it's a perfect marriage of inspired, honest performer and brilliant material......but it doesn't -to me anyway- feel like a "set piece".
I would LOVE to see Judy Kuhn take on Diana in Next To Normal. But Hell I'll watch her in anything.
