Broadway's Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer Remembers Late Mom a Year After Her Death: 'She's Always with Me' (Exclusive)

The stage veteran opens up to PEOPLE about her journey with the revival of 'Spamalot,' which earned her a 2024 Tony Award nomination

• Stage veteran Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer is sharing memories of her later mother Luz Selena Rodriguez, who died of frontotemporal dementia on May 9, 2023

• The actress is nominated for her first Tony Award for her role in Broadway's Spamalot

• Kritzer will perform her solo show, The Lady Of The Lake: The Farewell Tour, on June 5 at Joe's Pub in New York City
  

After 25 years of working in the business, Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer scored her first Tony nomination this year for her feature role as the Lady of the Lake in the acclaimed revival of Monty Python's Spamalot.

But the milestone comes at a bittersweet time for Kritzer.

"My mom, Luz Selena Rodriguez, died a year ago," the actress, 47, tells PEOPLE at the 2024 Tony Awards Meet the Nominees junket earlier this month. "And I can't stop thinking about how proud she would be in this moment."

Kritzer's mom died of frontotemporal dementia on May 9, 2023. The next day, Kritzer began technical rehearsals for Spamalot's run at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

"The timing was crazy," the performer recalls. "I was able to be there with her; I was right by her side when she took her last breath. And then I went from there and walked myself into a show where I was received with so much love. So to be here, a year later, celebrating a Tony nomination... it's really full circle."

Born in New York City and raised in New Jersey, Kritzer got bit by the performance bug at a young age.

She studied classical piano and classical voice at a young age, and flexed her comedy muscles in school plays before enrolling in the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music for musical theater (where she graduated with Shoshana Bean, who coincidentally is nominated in the same category alongside Kritzer this year).

After five years of doing regional and Off-Broadway shows, Kritzer finally made her Broadway debut in 2004, as a replacement in the original Broadway production of Hairspray. From there, she originated roles in Legally Blonde: The Musical (2007), A Catered Affair (2008), Sondheim on Sondheim (2010), and Elf (2012). She received some of the best reviews of her career playing Delia, the role made famous on screen by Catherine O'Hara, in 2019's Beetlejuice.

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Throughout it all, Kritzer says her mother was "her biggest cheerleader."

"She really always supported me and loved me so much," the star reflects. "And she knew that her little girl had something special. I get my humor from my dad, who is still with us, but I get my sass and fire from my mom. She took no B.S. from anybody. She gave me the drive that got me here. So this is really all for her. Everything I do, it's all for her."

Kritzer's mom was there, too, when the actress learned she had received her first Tony nomination. "I put a picture of her by the side of the bed so that she could be with me," Kritzer says. "I wanted her to be a part of it."

"But I feel her with me all the time; she's always with me," Kritzer adds. "And I look a lot like her, when I look back at pictures, So whenever I do an event where I get dressed up, I look in the mirror and I see her. This is exactly how she'd want me to look and feel. So it's crazy."

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Spamalot was Kritzer's ninth Broadway show. The role she played, the Lady of the Lake, was originated by Sara Ramirez (who won a Tony for it) in the 2005 Broadway production, and later by Hannah Waddingham in the 2006 London transfer.

"Coming into a role like this, it could be a little intimidating," Kritzer admits. "But Sara and Hannah did their thing, and when I approach a role, I like to say, 'OK, what can I do with it that no one else can?' So I put, what I call 'the special Kritzer sauce' on it, which is everything I have absorbed over the years working as a comedic actress and studying from people I idolize like Carol Burnett and Lily Tomlin and Andrea Martin. And that's what I did."

Luckily, she had the support of the revival's director and choreographer Josh Rhodes, who Kritzer says gave her "carte blanche to run with it."

"It was one of the greatest things I've ever done because I was really able to do all these things I wanted to do with it," Kritzer says. "All my crazy, kooky, wacky ideas, Josh said, 'Yeah, go, go, go, go.' It was such a blast. So to have that creative input and to get the recognition with this nomination, I feel really very grateful."

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And that gratitude remains, even in the wake of such loss.

"You know, everything in life is timing," Kritzer continues. "My mom, it had been a long illness and even though it was painful when it ended, that chapter's close allowed this one to open. So I feel lucky that she was finally in a place of peace, and it allowed me to move forward and really embrace the great things happening now."

"I feel like it's meant to be," she says. "It's really meant to be."

Kritzer will perform her solo show, The Lady Of The Lake: The Farewell Tour, on June 5 at Joe's Pub in New York City. Tickets are now on sale.

The 2024 Tony Awards will take place on Sunday, June 16, at Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater in N.Y.C. Viewers can watch the show on CBS and Paramount+ beginning at 8 p.m. ET. Select awards will also be handed out on a pre-show that will stream on Pluto TV.

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