Nicole Scherzinger Never Stopped Dreaming

The former Pussycat Doll stages a comeback.

- JACKSON MCHENRY

"THEY WANTED UP-TEMPO," Nicole Scherzinger purrs in the insulated register of a pop star preserving her voice, "so I'll do a fun little set of the hits." You may know the hits yourself: Scherzinger is best known as the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls, the aughts girl group whose songs touch a certain age bracket in the amygdala and get them on the dance floor. You probably remember the bravado of "Don't Cha," which suggests the listener wishes "their girlfriend was hot like me," or the aural striptease of "Buttons." We are, at this moment, speeding down the FDR Drive in a black car on her way to a gig: a set under the Brooklyn Bridge at a Wimbledon watch party. A few days earlier, she was performing at a festival outside London. Even in a very short time talking to Scherzinger, you get the impression she is never at rest. Her mind is always on to the next thing, the next comeback.

We arrive at a makeshift dressing room in St. Ann's Warehouse, and Scherzinger slips out of her poppy-red dress-deployed for a press appearance at the Empire State Building to promote this gig-and into a black sweat suit. When she begins rehearsal with her version of "Jai Ho," inspired by the song from Slumdog Millionaire, she doesn't hold back. Her voice has the quality of a non-Newtonian fluid, slick and solid, silver as a wisp of smoke.

It catches the attention of some of the event's employees.

"She sounds fucking incredible," one tells another, who brags, in turn, that they saw her perform on the West End in Sunset Blvd., Andrew Lloyd Webber's staging of the classic Billy Wilder film.

Sunset Blvd. is Scherzinger's next comeback-or, as her character, Norma Desmond, might put it, her return to stardom. The pivot to musical theater, which earned her an Olivier Award this spring, is a closely held achievement for her. The Evening Standard said she “absolutely bloody smashes it,” while the New York