Grammy winner Laufey is on a mission to star as Claire in Maybe Happy Ending.
“That’s the dream,” the half-Chinese half-Icelandic singer-songwriter giggles, blushing lightly from a cozy corner in New York. “Her demeanor really calls to me. I feel like I’m like that in love too: I deny that I have any feelings for a really long time, and that might come off as avoidant or moody, but really—it’s just that I’m scared. I would love to play her. And I just met Darren [Criss, the Tony winning star of Maybe Happy Ending] a few months ago, and now I keep running into him. So maybe it’s a sign.”
Or rather, a matter of time?
Shoehorned pun aside, Laufey has embraced her theatre kid roots in a big way this year: She attended the 2025 Tony Awards, she sang a duet with Lin-Manuel Miranda at her Madison Square Garden concert (see that video below), she sang on Barbra Streisand’s latest album. Oh, and her own album, A Matter of Time, was inspired by the musical Carousel—it’s just been nominated for a 2026 Grammy Award.
A classically trained musician and multi-instrumentalist who trained in both ballet and figure skating, Laufey has always harbored a not-so-secret love for musical theatre. “The only thing I’d watch growing up was Golden Age musical films, like Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. As I grew older, the recordings of My Fair Lady, Oklahoma, The King and I, and An American in Paris became my favorite things; they were my escape from cold and dark Iceland.”
An American in Paris, with its soaring Gershwin melodies and charming depiction of an artist’s life, particularly captivates her. “An American in Paris is everything to me. I saw the live stage version in 2016, and it was just life changing. It is the ultimate blend of classical music and jazz music and theatrical traditions and ballet. It is everything that I’ve loved for so long, and I thought didn’t really exist anymore, and I thought nobody else cared about. And I looked around and I saw so many people watching it and caring about it….”
Laufey waves her hand in front of her, emotional. “An American in Paris is my guiding light, both as a musical piece and as a theatre piece. George and Ira Gershwin, the way that they revolutionized blending classical music with popular music, is the guiding light for me as a musician. It has had such a big impact on me, and I could ramble about it forever. When I was looking for examples or proof that there was a care in this modern world about the kind of music that I wanted to make, I found it in the theatre. And the proof was in that musical. I cling on to that, really dearly.”
A Matter Of Time was actually inspired by her falling down the theatrical rabbit hole. “Waitress was another big turning point for me, in terms of understanding that musicals aren’t only repeating material from the past. In Iceland, the only musicals that are produced are the existing IP that people already knew. But I was a huge Sara Bareilles fan, so I followed Waitress from the beginning, and I fell in love with it. I listened to her recordings of it for a year straight, and then I listened to the original Broadway cast recording for another year, and I got really obsessed with Jessie Mueller. And she led me to Carousel.”
Carousel, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s second joint effort, quickly became Laufey’s favorite musical of all time. “I would listen to it almost every day. I love Carousel. It inspired this album, that blend of classical music with a dark edge. I named a song on the album after it, ‘Carousel.’ Throughout the album I was inspired by the lyrics, in particular ‘Soliloquy.’ One of my favorite songs ever is ‘Mr. Snow.’ It’s written stream of consciousness, she’s rambling and gossiping with her best friend like, ‘oh, I met this guy, and he’s stinks a fish, but I love him anyways!’ Within one song, she’s creating this life that they’re going to have together, and that is the bread and butter of what I do.”
Continues Laufey: “Ultimately, my music is how I dream. For Carrie, that’s dreaming of this future where she’ll marry Mr. Snow, have a house with all these children, and a little boat, and, and, and. That kind of tumbling dreamlike lyric writing is exactly what I was going for with this album.”
Laufey at the 2025 Tony Awards
Heather Gershonowitz
The robust connection between jazz and musical theatre inspires Laufey at every turn. “It’s something that I really try to shine light on, whenever I can. I think people are inclined to talk about theatre in a certain way that isn’t very…” Laufey shrugs, sidestepping the word cool.
“Look, almost all the jazz standards that you know are taken from musicals. The reason I fell in love with jazz and the Great American Songbook was because of music and the harmonies and the concise storytelling that comes from musicals. These songs were ripped out of shows where they had to be very descriptive. God, there’s this Cole Porter tune called ‘Miss Otis Regrets,’ and there’s an Ella Fitzgerald recording of it that is so good, and it’s so simple. The lyrics are so weird, it’s this ultra specific thing happening with no context given to you outside of it, but it’s so descriptive that you get pulled into the story anyway. That song is one of the reasons I fell in love with jazz music, and with Ella Fitzgerald. She sang so many theatre songs, and those descriptive lyrics, where I could close my eyes and imagine that I was in that room with her, or on the stage with them…” Laufey closes her eyes briefly, smiling happily. “I just love it.”
Shortly after attending the 2025 Tony Awards, it was revealed that Laufey had collaborated with EGOT legend Barbra Streisand on her newest duets album The Secrets of Life: Partners, Volume 2. That record, which is now directly competing against A Matter of Time for the Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, features Streisand and Laufey on a duet of Laufey’s original song “Letter to My 13 Year Old Self,” off her sophomore album Bewitched.
“I still can’t believe that happened,” Laufey laughs. “God, this year really was my soft launch into theatre. God, she’s just so wonderful. She heard my song, which is a biography of a performer. It’s putting you in the shoes of this person who felt like they were othered when they were younger, and then they grow this success, and with this success and newfound confidence, they go back to their younger self to instill some sort of bravery upon them. The fact that Barbra heard that song and related to it…” Once again, Laufey is overcome, lapsing into contemplative silence.
Eventually, she continues on. “She said that immediately upon hearing the song, she went and found her journals from when she was 13. She was saying the exact same things. All I’ve ever wanted is to write songs that transcend the meaning of just me, although they’re very autobiographical. I want other people to take them and be touched by them and implement them into their own lives and stories. The fact that she did that, and then we got to record it as a duet… The song as a duet gained new meaning, of this connection we now have between a more seasoned performer and someone new. It just gives me chills thinking about it. She’s incredibly lovely, and I’ve called her a couple of times, and she’s so willing to just talk about life with me, which I love.
“All I’ve ever hoped is that my songs would become standards, and the fact that she’s recorded it makes it a standard, I think. If it has the Barbra stamp of approval, it’s a standard.”
It’s not all Gershwin and Streisand, though. At just 26 years old, Laufey is also firmly plugged into the TheatreTok crowd, including the viral resurgence of Hamilton.
This past October, during her sold out show at Madison Square Garden, Laufey decided to recreate the viral “Best of Wives and Best of Women” TikTok trend onstage, with the musical’s creator Lin-Manuel Miranda by her side.
“I literally don’t know how I got there. I knew I wanted to have some sort of ode to theatre at both of my New York shows. For the first night, I had Rachel Zegler come out and sing the song ‘Goddess’ with me, which is she absolutely smashed. And then the second night, we just reached out to [Lin’s] team asking for a couple of seconds of his time, and for some reason, he agreed. It was so sweet, he came with members of his family to watch the show, and when he popped out,”
Laufey shakes her head, demonstrating the sheer shock that accompanied his appearance. “That is the loudest moment of any show I have ever had … There is nothing louder than when Lin stepped out on stage. I swear to god, MSG shook. It was crazy, and everyone was singing every single lyric. I could barely sing because I couldn’t hear myself.” She then adds, with emphasis: “He is loved.”
With showtunes being so central to her own songwriting process, it is natural to ask if Laufey has a musical of her own in her future. She laughs. “I’ve always had that as a goal. Growing up, I really wanted to be in musicals, but I was in a really strict classical music school, so I had no time to do it. And look, I’m so happy that I stayed in classical music, I think that paid off in its way. But I really, really want to write a musical.”
There’s a but there, though. “I feel deeply that I need to be in a musical before I write a musical. I don’t have the experience of being in a show, I only have the outside viewership experience and my own songwriting experience. I feel that to understand the inner workings of a musical, I need to be inside someone else’s art first. So yes, I have my own ideas. But I need to be in a show first before they can become anything more than voice memos.”
Maybe Happy Ending, the ball is in your court!
