By Emily Miller
IDAHO FALLS — Trading the bright lights of big-city theaters for the intimate charm of community productions, Nicole Riding Stoker is captivating eastern Idaho audiences in her latest role as Miss Honey in Center Stage Theatre’s musical production of Roald Dahl’s “Matilda.”
Stoker, who once played Eponine in the Third National Tour production of “Les Misérables,” has performed with the likes of Colm Wilkinson (the original Jean Valjean in the Broadway production of “Les Misérables”), Kurt Bestor, Lexi Walker and David Osmond, to name a few.
Now, musical theater lovers can see her on stage right here in eastern Idaho, but only for a few more shows. “Matilda” closes Saturday, October 26. Stoker is double-cast in the role of Miss Honey with another east Idaho theater standout, Rachel McKee, which means the two performers alternate shows throughout the run. Stoker’s remaining dates are October 21, 25, and the evening show on October 26, and McKee will play Miss Honey on October 24 and the matinee on October 26. Tickets are available here.
After moving to Sugar City in 2020 with her husband and two children, Stoker found herself aching to return to the stage, which had been a big part of her life since her youth. Growing up in California, Stoker caught the theater bug early in her life, when she was in middle school. She remembers juggling her artistic endeavors (drama, choir, and dance) with sports, especially soccer, and eventually having to choose which interests to focus on.
“When I was a sophomore in high school, I thought, ‘I don’t have time for all of this anymore,’ and I was getting accepted into the advanced performing classes at my school, which were taking more time,” Stoker says. “I found I had to make a choice.”
She remembers thinking, “I’m a good soccer player, but I’m not amazing. It’s fun, but this isn’t going to go anywhere for me. Maybe I could go somewhere with musical theater.”
She says it never occurred to her at that age that she could do it professionally. At that time, her sights were set on a different opportunity – performing with the Young Ambassadors, a traveling vocal performance group from Brigham Young University.
Between her junior and senior year of high school, Stoker attended a Young Ambassadors youth summer camp at BYU, catching the attention of faculty who encouraged her to audition for the school’s Music Dance Theatre program. She made it into the program, and says her college days were filled with dance classes, acting classes and voice lessons in what she says was an all-encompassing major.
“My mom was a little concerned,” she says, “She was like, ‘What are you going to do with this?’ But it was where I was supposed to be. There was not any doubt for me. Once I got in, I was like, ‘This is where I am supposed to be.’”
Stoker spent her sophomore and junior years at BYU performing with the Young Ambassadors, fulfilling her longtime dream. During her membership, the group toured throughout southeast Asia and the southern United States.
“That was so fun,” she says. “It took over my life. Those were my friends; that’s who I hung out with. Those were my roommates sometimes. I breathed, ate and slept Young Ambassadors. That was my life in college.”
Little did she know, a huge opportunity was waiting in the wings. In the fall of 1999, the national tour of “Les Misérables” was in Salt Lake City and held open auditions.
“Some friends from Young Ambassadors and I were like, ‘Let’s skip school tomorrow and go do this.’”
Stoker says that after a long day of waiting for her turn to audition, she finally got her chance to perform for the casting team. She was asked to come back the following day to audition for the role of Eponine.
“I went back and sang ‘On My Own’ and worked with them for a little bit, and they were like, ‘Thank you so much,’ and that was it,” she said. “I walked out and I was like, ‘That was a really cool experience,’ and then I moved on with my life.”
She explains that, when auditioning at that level, a performer never knows if or when they’ll hear back.
Nine months later, Stoker was five days away from embarking on a new journey to do a study abroad program in Jerusalem, when she unexpectedly got a call from a casting director, telling her there was a spot for her as an Eponine understudy on the national tour.
“You could not have surprised me more,” she says. “I was shocked. Completely shocked. Everyone in my household was literally out of the country that day, so I was totally all by myself, and I was like, ‘Can I have a day to think about it?’”
Stoker says that leaving school and not going to Jerusalem was a “complete life course pivot” that took some thinking and praying.
“I prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and got a very definite, clear answer that it was the right choice for me to go on tour,” she says. “I dropped out of the Jerusalem program — probably made some other girl very, very happy that she got into the program at the last minute — and I met them in San Francisco two weeks later.”
Stoker toured with the Third National Tour for two years, traveling all over the United States and Canada, and the production was the first American musical to go to China. Stoker says the tour spent three weeks in Beijing, and four weeks in Seoul, South Korea, performing with a who’s who of the popular musical’s cast.
“When we went to China, Colm Wilkinson came out and played Jean Valjean for the run in Beijing, and then Fantine and Javert from the West End company came out and did the run with us. They kind of put together an all-star principal cast,” she says. “(Wilkinson) was very nice and darling, and great to work with.”
As an understudy for one of the show’s main characters, Stoker was also a member of the ensemble, playing various characters throughout the performance.
“I did eight shows a week, and then, occasionally they would call me a half hour before the show and say, ‘Hey, can you go on for Eponine tonight?’”
Stoker says playing the iconic role of Eponine for the first time, in Memphis, Tennessee, was an experience she’ll never forget.
“I can’t tell you the feeling of being all alone on stage, singing such an iconic song like ‘On My Own’ with a full orchestra underneath me, with a packed house,” she says. “It was just like, ‘How is this my life?’”
It was tradition in this company, she says, for the whole cast to watch from backstage when someone performed for the first time in a principal role.
“I was in a company of incredibly supportive coworkers,” she says. “When someone new went on for the first time, everyone watched from the wings. Everybody was just so supportive.”
After two years on tour, Stoker decided it was time to go back to BYU to finish her degree, but following her senior year, she was contacted and invited to rejoin the tour for the last leg, this time officially billed as Eponine. She says closing out the Third National Tour as Eponine was an incredible experience.
After “Les Misérables,” Stoker spent two seasons at Tuacahn Amphitheater in Ivins, Utah, performing in “Guys and Dolls,” playing Anita in “West Side Story,” and playing The Narrator in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”
“Anita was a highlight for sure,” Stoker says. “That was such an incredible role to play.”
After roles at Tuacahn and Hale Center Theatre in Orem, Utah, Stoker took her acting chops to New York City looking for opportunities in the world capital of musical theater. There, she was able to be a part of readings with musicals that were in development.
“That’s always exciting, to get to do new works and perform for people who might go, ‘I like this show. Let’s take this further,’” she says. “Those have definitely been some of the highlights.”
Among those highlights was the chance to read for a part as an understudy for the lead in the original cast of “Waitress.”
“I did get asked to come in and sing to audition to understudy Jessie Mueller in ‘Waitress,’” Stoker says. “I learned Sara Bareilles music that had yet to be published.”
Stoker had early access to songs like “She Used to Be Mine,” and “Everything Changes” — songs that went on to become huge hits in the musical theater genre.
She remembers thinking, “I’m holding music in my hand that nobody else knows right now.”
Stoker says that she loved her time in New York City and is grateful for the personal growth that came from putting herself out there over and over — whether she landed the parts or not.
“I have pounded the pavement,” she says. “I loved my time in New York, but it’s very hard. It’s a constant mental game to have to keep up with not attaching your self-worth to whether you’re getting work.”
Fast forward a few years, and now Stoker is a mom of two little boys, living in Sugar City. Her husband, Danny, teaches Middle East and world history, as well as courses in Arabic at Brigham Young University-Idaho, which is what brought the family to East Idaho a few years ago.
Stoker had an unexpected opportunity soon after moving to Sugar City, when Kurt Bestor reached out and invited her to join his 2021 production of “The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber,” which was part of the “Live! At the Eccles” series in Salt Lake City.
“I was kind of freaking out, because it had been a long time since I’d had any professional opportunities,” she says.
She describes the directors and performers, which included Dallyn Vail Bayles, David Osmond, Lisa Hopkins Seegmiller and Lexi Walker, as “so kind and endlessly positive.”
Since then, Stoker has been making a name for herself in the community theater circles of East Idaho. While she admits it’s much different from the big-budget productions of the bigger cities, she says performing on the smaller stage fills her creative bucket.
“Do I miss performing professionally? Is that a trick question? Of course I do,” she says with a laugh. “But if community theater is what I’m doing now in this chapter of my life, then that’s what I’m doing. That’s what’s available, and that’s what I’m doing.”
Stoker says that community theater is special because the people involved, who are mostly volunteers, are there because they love it. She says it creates a wonderful creative atmosphere.
“It’s different, of course, but I am just so happy to be there and just get to create and be on stage with other people who are also happy to be there,” she says.
Coming back to the stage for “Matilda” is like coming home, she says.
“It feels like coming back to something that I had to walk away from, and it’s great to be back,” Stoker says. “It’s been awesome. Everybody has been so fun to work with. There is some very serious talent on the stage, and also backstage.”
For instance, Matt Larsen and Cam Carter are standouts as Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood, she says.
“They are incredible, and they’re so good together,” she says. “They’re crazy, over-the-top characters, and they’re so perfect.”
Stoker says that playing Miss Honey is a dream role, but different from what she’s used to.
“I tend to be cast as very strong women,” she says. “So to play a woman who is traumatized by abuse, which has really affected her self image, her self-worth, how she talks to herself, how she sees herself in the world — what she has experienced has shaped who she is as an adult — that’s been really, really cool to delve into. I have to approach this differently than I am used to approaching roles.”
Showing the courage that grows in Miss Honey throughout the story has been a treasured experience, Stoker says.
“The relationship that she cultivates with Matilda teaches her about her strength,” Stoker says. “Matilda needs an advocate so badly that Miss Honey has to figure it out. She has to be that person, so it brings back her strength as well.”
To see one of the remaining performances of “Matilda” at Center Stage Theatre, visit the theater’s website here.
