A helicopter, a fairy godmother, kindness: Inside Broadway actor's wild race from JFK to Aladdin stage

Broadway understudy Mikayla Renfrow was flying in an airliner about 40,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean when she got the text from her stage manager: She would need to be at the theater in Times Square to play Jasmine in "Aladdin" that night.

There's no way, Renfrow thought.

She had four more hours left on the Delta flight, which had been delayed by 90 minutes and was set to land at 5 p.m. at JFK International Airport. Renfrow would have to get through Customs and make her way through rush-hour traffic to get to the New Amsterdam Theatre by 6:30 p.m.

"I was on top of the Atlantic in between two continents ... My heart definitely dropped," when the text came in, Renfrow told USA TODAY on Tuesday. "I looked over my boyfriend and I was like, 'There's no way. There's no way that's gonna happen' ... In my brain in that moment, I fully believed that this was not possible.'"

She would soon be proved wrong, thanks to a quick-thinking flight attendant and the plane's captain. Her frantic journey from the jetway to Broadway went viral this week in a TikTok Renfrow posted Monday.

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'You're going to get to the theater'

All but hopeless, Renfrow decided to let one of the flight attendants know about her predicament and ask if there was any way she could be allowed to get off the plane first. (She was sitting toward the back on the on Sept. 12 flight).

"I said, 'I'm the understudy and I'm being called in to play the (leading) role and I have to be there no later than 6:30," Renfrow said she told flight attendant Leicha Richardson, the in-flight supervisor.

"She was like, 'What show?' And I said, 'Aladdin,'" Renfrow recalled. "And she goes, 'Oh, you're playing Jasmine ... I'm going to get the pilot on the phone, we're going to figure this out for you. You're going to get to the theater tonight, I'm telling you that right now.'"

Stunned, Renfrow said: "I was like, this queen in front of me."

Things moved pretty fast after that.

'Fairy godmother'

Richardson told Renfrow about Blade, a helicopter service that takes people from JFK to Manhattan in less than 10 minutes for $195.

Renfrow got the approval from her stage manager to pay for the Blade, booking it through an app using the airplane's WiFi. Another crew member helped Renfrow download an app that allows passengers to get through Customs quickly.

Then Richardson moved Renfrow up to an empty first-class seat so she could get off the plane first and hopefully get some rest before curtains up.

"'I'm going to give you a jug of water and you're going to try and sleep and hydrate and rest because you have a big night,'" Renfrow said Richardson told her. "Fully my fairy godmother."

Richardson told USA TODAY that the second she saw Renfrow, she wanted to help her.

"I saw Mikayla's face and she was full of anxiety and she had these big, puppy eyes," she said from her home in Brooklyn. "The mother in me came out like, 'Listen, it's gonna be OK, we got this.'"

Richardson, who has been with Delta for 27 years, then talked to the pilot, told him the situation and introduced him to Renfrow. Turns out, both Renfrow and the pilot are from Ohio.

"He was all for it," Richardson said. "He was like, 'Listen, we're gonna get you there.' If he could have landed the plane on Broadway, it would have happened."

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Planes, choppers and subways

The captain arranged to taxi the plane to a gate that was closer to Customs.

After landing, a Delta agent escorted Renfrow through Customs and to the Blade car that takes passengers to the helicopter. Though she was two minutes late for the ride she booked, the company knew she was on her way and held the helicopter for her, Renfrow said.

In about eight minutes, she landed at Hudson Yards in Manhattan. From there, she scrambled to the subway, which lets out right outside the theater. She walked in at 6:20 p.m. and was on stage 40 minutes later.

Among the audience members was a very special guest: her fairy godmother flight attendant.

Disney arranged to have a ticket waiting for Richardson, who used her expert-level mastery of the subway system to get to the theater just in time for curtains up. An usher watched her bags and she enjoyed the show fully decked out in her Delta uniform.

She gives Renfrow's performance five stars.

"I'm just so amazed that someone that flew nine hours after a vacation in Europe ... and right to work and she knew her lines, she was belting out those notes, it was fabulous."

Renfrow will have to take her word for it.

"I honestly don't remember a lot of it ... the adrenaline was so strong," she said. "It was pretty blackout ... I remember the first entrance and hearing Leicha ... As soon as I came out she was like, 'Woo woo!'"

Creating magic

Renfrow made a TikTok about the experience nearly a week later. It instantly took off and had nearly a million views by Wednesday.

"You SAVED Broadway," one user wrote. Another said: "OK why am I sobbing at the fact Leicha came to watch you?!"

Renfrow immediately sent it to Richardson to tell her what an impact she had made.

"I was like, 'Everyone loves you. You're amazing at your job,'" said Renfrow, who grew up in Cincinnati and has been living her dream in New York City for the past two years.

As a new empty nester whose two children are off at college, the 50-year-old Richardson said she did what any good mother would do. Or rather, fairy godmother.

"We just did what we needed to do in the moment and that's what was important ... continuously creating that magic to move forward and get her where she needed to be," Richardson said. "If that's fairy dust and fairy godmother, then so it is."

Amanda Lee Myers covers news, adventure and the human experience for USA Today. She can be reached at [email protected] and found on X at @AmandaLeeUSAT.