What happens in the ballroom doesn’t always stay there.
After captivating audiences on “Dancing with the Stars,” Whitney Leavitt and Mark Ballas are back together — only this time they are on Broadway, starring in “Chicago” at New York City’s Ambassador Theatre.
“If someone would have said a year ago that the two of you would be on the cover of the playbill, ‘Chicago’ on Broadway, what would your reaction have been?” ABC News’ Will Ganss asked the duo in an interview that aired Wednesday on “Good Morning America.”
“I probably would have been like, ‘You’re crazy. What? How?'” Leavitt said with a laugh.
“Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah. Speechless,” Ballas added.
Leavitt, who rose to fame on “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” is now leading “Chicago” to its highest-grossing week in the show’s 30-year history while playing Roxie Hart.
“She’s definitely sassy. She’s very sassy. I’d say sassy, impulsive, and always just, like, learning,” Leavitt said of her character.
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Asked what she and Roxie Hart have in common, Leavitt replied with a laugh, saying,” Every single one of those things.”
Amid her success on Broadway, Leavitt said she is still deciding what her future looks like on “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” the hit Hulu reality TV show.
“We’re figuring it out in real-time. I don’t really know,” Leavitt said. “I feel sometimes that it’s like time to venture out. Like, this is what I’m passionate about.”
In “Chicago,” Ballas joins Leavitt as Billy Flynn, following in the footsteps of stars like Patrick Swayze and Usher.
The moment marks a full-circle journey that began during their time on “DWTS,” when they danced to the song “Cell Block Tango” from the Broadway show.
“It was just something that happened very organically,” Leavitt said of the performance. “Like, there had been talks about it for me to come play Roxie and audition for that role… we had to choose a piece or a song that had been done before on the show, and that was the one that was available.”
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Ballas said he saw it coming.
“I just think during the rehearsals … I was like, ‘You’re gonna play this role at some point.’ I just, like, could feel it, you know. And now.”
“Here we are,” Leavitt added.
Behind the scenes, the pair are even bringing a bit of their ballroom past with them.
Ballas revealed his costume for Billy Flynn has a personal connection.
“This is made by our ‘Dancing with the Stars’ tailor,” he explained. “And when I came out for a fitting, the suit they tried on, I was like, ‘I have this exact suit, like, made for me.'”
But live theater comes with its own surprises.
“Oh, multiple times, 1,000%,” Leavitt responded with a laugh when asked about things going wrong on stage.
Recalling one moment, she said, “I couldn’t remember my next line, so I was like, ‘I’m a star.” She laughed then added, “You just, you gotta roll with it.”
As for what they hope audiences take away from their Broadway run?
“People get very passionate about these reality game shows,” Leavitt said. “They’re like, ‘You should’ve won. You and Mark,’ da-da-da. But we won in different ways. And I think that’s a really important lesson in life.”
The Walt Disney Co. is the parent company of ABC and Hulu.
