MUSIC: Heather Headley headlines special Broadway night with the Arkansas Symphony

Singer-actress Heather Headley isn't currently on Broadway — her most recent gig was in 2016, playing Shug Avery in The Color Purple. But that doesn't mean she's been idle.

The Tony and Grammy winner — the former in 2000 for best actress in a musical in the title role in Aida, the latter in 2010 for best contemporary R&B gospel album for her Audience of One — is taking the weekend off from shooting a new Netflix series adapted from Steel Magnolias to join the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra on Saturday for a broad-spectrum, Broadway-centered program at Little Rock's Robinson Center Performance Hall.

"I'm honored that they asked," she says.

The "setlist" for the one-night-only A Broadway Evening with Heather Headley, from which Headley is still selecting, includes "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" from The Lion King (did we mention she originated the role of Nala on Broadway?); "Easy as Life" from Aida; "I Will Always Love You" from The Bodyguard, a stage version of the 1994 Whitney Houston film that Headley did for a year in London's West End; "My House" from Matilda; and three songs from musicals based on The Wizard of Oz ("Over the Rainbow" from the 1939 film, "Home" from The Wiz and "For Good" from Wicked). Look out also for "Amazing Grace," Elton John's "Your Song" and David Foster's "The Prayer."

Helping out will be Chris Mann, a finalist on NBC's The Voice, and the Parkview High School Lab Singers and Madrigals.

"Every now and then, when I need a ringer, it's Chris," Headley says. ("Music of the Night" from The Phantom of the Opera is on the setlist, and Headley says she'll let Mann sing that.)

Admitting that the program is certainly varied, Headley also admits to what she calls "song envy."

"There are so many songs from my time on Broadway that I don't have the opportunity to sing, as well as try them on and see what they would sound like in my voice," she says in an accent that bears echoes of her native Trinidad, where she spent most of her childhood. Her family moved to the United States in the '90s.

"Most of the songs are steeped in Broadway or my experience on Broadway, but then they kind of reflect my life. They're some of my favorite songs."

Headley compares the process of selecting songs from various shows to trying on clothing.

"It's just like a dress," she says. "I just want to try the dress on. I just want to sing the song. I don't necessarily want to do the whole show. All these are 'dresses' that I've always wanted to try on.

"In essence, I get to go into people's closets and try their dresses on. Some dresses don't fit. Some I have to hem a little bit. Some dresses are like, 'Don't ever put us on again.' And some dresses fit.

"There's something to be said for the song being in the context of the show. What I wanted to do was remove the song from the show and kind of have them stand on their own, for the person who does not go to Broadway to hear it, just being a beautiful song."

Headley says she'll go into rehearsal with the orchestra and determine which songs on the list will make it to the concert stage and which will be left by the wayside, so to speak.

"It's a feel for me," she explains. "I get in the room, I feel the people, and sometimes you go, 'This song is not for them. Maybe that song is for a different kind of group,' or 'These people can handle this one.'"

And Headley is bringing along her own conductor, Los Angeles-based music director Ron Colvard.

Initially, "he and I worked on some Disney stuff together. He has now become a friend," she says. "Ron has been great for me, not just a music director, but he understands the music, understands what I need and [do] not need in the song. He understands my voice, he understands the music, and he understands great orchestras. You can't just can't bring any old person — good musicians will sniff that out pretty quickly. So you need to have the best for great musicians."

Weekend on 10/03/2019