SUPERNOVA

A searingly modern take on Sunset Boulevard, starring Nicole Scherzinger at the height of her powers, comes to the New York stage.

- Sarah Crompton

Nicole Scherzinger arrives in the makeshift dressing room in a flurry of silk and nervous energy. She takes off her dark glasses: no makeup. "This is me in work mode," she says.

But her skin is flawless, her eyes clear and piercing, eyebrows arched over high cheekbones, a toned stomach glimpsed under her loose, gold-patterned shirt. It is midsummer and she is getting ready to perform at Britain's Henley Festival, an event that transforms a verdant bend in the river Thames into a hubbub of tents around a floating stage.

She's the star attraction but admits she's anxious. "I am always picky about sound," she says. But she's eager to discuss the subject at hand, which is her Broadway debut in an incendiary new version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard. "I am 46, and I've dreamed of going to Broadway my whole life," she says, smiling. We've moved to her trailer, sitting amid white leather cushions and sipping coconut water. "It has taken a long time, but it feels really special because I get to do it as Norma Desmond." Lloyd Webber's musical is based on the 1950 Billy Wilder film about the fading silent-film star hiding away in a decaying mansion but clinging to her dream of a comeback. It's been the vehicle for memorable performances by Patti LuPone and Glenn Close. But Scherzinger's interpretation, which she debuted at London's Savoy Theatre last year, offered something raw and revealing. A stripped-back monochrome production by British director Jamie Lloyd, full of smoke and shadows and incorporating cameras and screens to tell the story of Norma's doomed love affair with a young screenwriter, the show drives home the sense that stars flicker in and out, losing their place in the pantheon.