Hocking to Speak at Commencement, Receive Honorary Degree

Former Northern Michigan University theater student and Broadway veteran Leah Hocking will be the keynote speaker for NMU's May 3 commencement. The Marquette native will also receive an honorary Doctor of Theater Studies degree. Hocking has appeared in 10 Broadway musicals. Her roles included Mum in Billy Elliot, Donna Sheridan in Mama Mia, Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls, Velma Von Tussle in Hairspray, Lucy in Jekyll and Hyde and Marty in Grease. She was also nominated for a Helen Hayes award for her performance as Mrs. Wilkinson in the national tour of Billy Elliot at The Kennedy Center.

Though she lives in New York City, Hocking still has family in the area. She returned to NMU's Forest Roberts Theatre stage in June 2023 to perform Out of the Window, an evening of songs and remembrances about her life and career.

"I absolutely love Marquette and try to get back there once a year," she said during an interview in advance of her show on campus. "It's such a beautiful place. If I could have found a way to make a living there, as an actor, I would have stayed. I think about retiring in Marquette, but then again, I don't plan on retiring ever. I love what I do."

Hocking estimated that she performed in about 15 youth, community theater and college productions staged at NMU starting at age 13. An early highlight was playing Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. After graduating from Marquette Senior High School in 1979, she enrolled at NMU.

"We actually had an audition class that [the late Forest Roberts Theatre Director] Jim Panowski started teaching," she said. "Then Dr. P would take us to national summer theater auditions. I got as much preparation as you could get for the real world in terms of auditioning. It was way more than other places offered. That was the era when conservatories were just starting to amp up. Now there are a lot and they are very difficult to get into."

Despite her later career trajectory, Hocking said she only performed in one musical during her three years at Northern, in part because that time period included an internship at Milwaukee Repertory Theater. But she did appear in Northern's productions of Mother Courage and Her Children, an anti-war play by German dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht, and The Night of the Iguana, a tale of tourists at a seedy Mexico hotel by Tennessee Williams.

"After my three years at Northern, I transferred to Ohio State University," Hocking said. "I moved to New York City the following year, but it honestly took five years to get myself together and seriously commit to my career. Once that happened, things started going well for me. I landed my first steady off-Broadway show-Forbidden Broadway-in 1990. My first Broadway show was Guys and Dolls. I was cast in the revival in 1993, two weeks after I got married."

Sadly, Hocking's husband died from ALS in 2010. She limited her work obligations for a period afterward to focus on raising their then-8-year-old daughter, Mabel. Her other Broadway musical credits over the years have included The Last Ship, All Shook Up, The Wild Party and Dance of the Vampires. She also made her New York City Opera debut as Cleo in The Most Happy Fella.

In the regional theater realm, Hocking just appeared in the world premiere of Hard Road to Heaven, a Nashville-meets-Broadway country musical that ran through most of March at Bucks County Playhouse. In the summer of 2022, she played the mother in All of Me at the Barrington Stage Company. Her performance garnered a Berkshire Theatre Critics Award for best supporting actress in a play. Hocking also participates in staged readings, saying her "favorite thing to do is work on new plays and invent a new character."

NMU's commencement is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Saturday, May 3, in the Superior Dome. It will be televised by WNMU-TV and streamed online at nmu.edu/commencement.