Anika Noni Rose Jokes She 'Needed a Tune-Up' Returning to Broadway After 10 Year Absence: 'I Was Exhausted'

The Tony winner is currently starring in Lincoln Center Theater's revival of 'Uncle Vanya' opposite Steve Carrell, Allison Pill and Alfred Molina

Anika Noni Rose is learning again the grueling nature of an eight-show week.

Exactly 20 years after her Tony Award win — and 10 years since she last performed on Broadway — the Dreamgirls actress is back on the Great White Way in Lincoln Center Theater's revival of Anton Chekhov's beloved classic play Uncle Vanya. And while the saying may go that "it's like riding a bike," Rose, 51, admits it's been a bit harder this time around.

"Most of the time it is [like riding a bike]. You feel like, 'Yeah, we're back,' " she said during an appearance on 3rd Hour of Today on Tuesday, April 9. "[But] I have to say, after COVID and quarantine and all the things we’ve been through, this bike needed a tune up. I needed to oil the chain."

To get herself up to speed, Rose said she had to reacquaint herself "with the schedule and discipline that is theater, which is a very difficult thing."

"The first two weeks of rehearsal, I think we all were like, dragging," she recalled. "I was like, 'I don’t know if I’ve ever been this tired' — and it’s not a musical! We’re not dating and singing! I was exhausted."

"It really is something to come back to," she added. "And it's a constant dig, this piece. You never stop digging and finding, minding for information."

Related: Anika Noni Rose Recreates Viral Dreamgirls Meme of Her Character 17 Years After the Movie

Rose made her Broadway debut as a replacement in the musical Footloose, which ran from Oct. 1998 to July 2000. Four years later, she had her breakout role in 2004's Caroline, or Change, winning a Tony for best featured actress in a musical.

She later starred in two acclaimed revivals of two classic plays. First was Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 2008, opposite Terrence Howard, James Earl Jones, and Phylicia Rashad (among others). And then there was 2014's revival of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, which earned her a Tony nomination (she starred in that alongside another A-list cast including Denzel Washington, LaTanya Richardson Jackson and Sophie Okonedo).

Off stage, Rose has made a name for herself in a number of television and film roles, from camp classics like From Justin to Kelly to prestige dramas like The Good Wife.

She's best known to for playing Lorrell Robinson in Bill Condon's Oscar-winning Dreamgirls film, and voicing Tiana in Disney's The Princess and the Frog.

Related: Former Disney Princess Anika Noni Rose Loves Playing a 'Badass' in 'Power'

In Uncle Vanya, Rose — who met her husband Jason Dirden when they costarred in A Raisin in the Sun — is once again part of a starry ensemble, including William Jackson Harper, Jonathan Hadary, Jayne Houdyshell, Spencer Donovan Jones, Mia Katigbak, Alfred Molina, Alison Pill, and Steve Carell in his Broadway debut.

The new version of the Chekhov classic comes from Heidi Schreck with direction by Lila Neugebauer. In previews now, the play opens Wednesday, April 24 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in New York City and runs through June 16, 2024.

The play follows Sonia (Pill) and her uncle Vanya (Carell), who have devoted their lives to managing the family farm in isolation. But when Sonia's celebrated, ailing father (Molina) and his charismatic wife (Rose) move in, their lives are upended.

"In the heat of the summer, the wrong people fall in love, desires and resentments erupt, and the family is forced to reckon with the ghosts of their unlived lives," reads the play's description.

On the 3rd Hour of Today, Rose remarked how Chekhov's enduring masterpiece still speaks to the present moment.

"People are really looking at their lives and reevaluating, and the people in this play are all reevaluating where they are in life," she said. "Now, to be clear, it is a comedy — it's a dark comedy. But they want to know, 'What is life about at this point?' Are we making the best choices? Have we missed the mark?' ... 'Have you made the most of your life? Have you found love? Have you lived in love? What is important to you?' These are all things that they ere looking for."

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As for her cast mates, Rose joked "they're all exquisitely difficult" before praising them — and herself — for all being "a bunch of really weird, smart, thoughtful people."

"I am really going to miss these people when this show is over," she said.

Tickets for Uncle Vanya are now on sale.

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