Set on the coast of Maine in the late nineteenth century, Carousel tells the story of a young mill worker named Julie Jordan (Mueller), who falls for and marries the brash carousel barker Billy (Henry), who physically abuses her and is about to leave her when he learns that she’s pregnant, leading to his involvement in a botched robbery, his violent death, and his ultimate salvation in the afterlife. The son of Jamaican immigrants, he grew up in Miami and planned on being an accountant when he grew up (it didn’t pan out), Henry comes to the role fresh from the national tour of Hamilton, in which he played Aaron Burr, another flawed man undone by poor life choices. “I’m attracted to playing complex human beings like Billy,” he says. “He’s the hero and the villain of the story.” Many of the musicals in which Henry has starred, from Scottsboro Boys and Shuffle Along to Hamilton, have contended with the barbed issue of race in our country’s history. But don’t expect a revisionist Carousel. “When I asked Scott Rudin why he wanted to cast me, he said, ‘Because I think you’re the best actor to play this role’—which was very flattering,” Henry recalls. “At the same time, I’m a black man, and I’m going to bring who I am to the part, and that’s going to add nuances of meaning to certain moments.”
As someone who grew up in a deeply religious household and discovered his gift for performing by singing and playing guitar in church, Henry says that he is drawn to the show’s theme of redemption. “I’m moved by the idea of ‘Can we do something terrible and get a second chance?’ ” he says. Playing a man whose life is changed when he discovers that he’s about to be a father has a particular resonance for Henry at this moment: He and his wife, Cathryn, are expecting their first child this month. It has given, Henry says, new meaning to the lyrics of “Soliloquy,” the almost operatic act-one finale, in which Billy grapples with the emotions of what it will be like to raise a son or daughter. “In that first line, he asks, ‘I wonder what he’ll think of me’ and then he goes on to wonder what he’ll be like, and that’s exactly what I’m thinking right now, like, Who is this guy going to be?” Henry says. “I’m getting to be a leading man, playing this iconic role, and at the same time preparing to take on the most important role of my life. From my own spiritual perspective, the whole thing almost feels orchestrated.”
