For someone who thought he might be a professional baseball player, musical theatre has turned out to be very good for Derek Klena. After being a regular member of the For the Record series when it was at Rockwell Table and Stage in Los Feliz, Klena caught some lucky breaks and found himself being at the creation of new musicals by Broadway legends, future Tony Award winners and 7-time Grammy Award winner. It is that life that he will share in his show on Saturday, August 10th at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood.
A quick look at Klena’s resume reveals such shows as a revival of the much-maligned musical Carrie, Pasek & Paul’s Dogfight, the role of Fiyero in Wicked, Jason Robert Brown’s The Bridges of Madison County, Sheryl Crow’s musical of Barry Levinson’s 1982 film Diner, Anastasia and the upcoming Jagged Little Pill based on Alanis Morisette’s best-selling album. Not bad for a kid from West Covina.
That gave us plenty to talk about when we spoke by phone last week.
When you were doing For the Record, did you think it would take so little time for you to become so embraced by the theatre community in New York?
I really had no idea. I had a few crazy instances that lead me to audition for gigs in New York. I also did this competition in Los Angeles, “The Next Great Stage Star” and I got an agent from that. I ended up doing a cabaret show in Studio City as one of the Top 5 of that competition. At that time Catch Me If You Can was doing an out-of-town run in Seattle. I saw Aaron Tveit on YouTube doing a song from that show and I had to sing that song. I did it in my show, which was reviewed by Broadway World and Marc Shaiman [the composer of Catch Me If You Can] got a Google alert. He reached out and said, “I heard you sang the song. Did you sing it good?” He asked that I send him a recording of me singing the song since they would need a standby for Aaron. They felt I wasn’t quite right for it, but they had me seen for another show…Carrie.
For the Record seems like it was fertile ground for performers to make the leap to Broadway. You, Jessica Keenan Wynn (Beautiful), Kristolyn Lloyd (Dear Evan Hansen) and Joanna Jones (Hamilton) also made the leap. What was it about that experience?
They were so ambitious with the idea since the very beginning. Their network of friends and performers and relationships kind of formed this crazy talented cast that was such unique with such a broad skill set. I feel like the sky was the limit from the beginning. And it was such a unique experience to perform in an intimate venue in a concert environment. I had never been exposed to that before. That goes for most of us. That gave us a lot of confidence. It was almost improvisational in a way. You never knew what an audience member would throw your way. It was invaluable.
Let’s talk about some of the shows beginning with Carrie. What did you enjoy most about doing a musical that has had such a tortured history?
Because it was my first experience in New York I was a kid in a candy store. They had so many hopes for this production. It was such a young cast. Coming to a city where you don’t know anybody, having a young cast that was so inclusive and welcomed me with open arms was a gift. And having Marin Mazzie who was such a beautiful person and actor being the captain of that ship, I learned a lot.
That lead to you working with Pasek & Paul on Dogfight, based on the 1991 film. Tell me about working with those two in the days before their massive success with Dear Evan Hansen.
It’s interesting to look at this young writing duo before all that instant fame. We were all young people trying to figure it out. Joe Mantello was directing the show and he was the only person who had that experience of developing musicals successfully. [He’s the director of Wicked.] It’s fascinating to look back at Benj Pasek, Justin Paul and Peter Duchan [bookwriter] write and construct these pieces in the room and have Joe shoot it down or say “no, that’s not quite right” and then watch them go into another room, come back with a whole new piece and keep presenting all these pieces until we got the right fit.
The Bridges of Madison County won composer Jason Robert Brown two Tony Awards, but didn’t last long on Broadway with only 100 performances. When you are in a show do you have a sense whether or not it is working with the audience?
I think it’s a tough subject matter to achieve as it is. I don’t think I was aware in the room that things were working or not working because [director] Bart Sher is so smart, he gave us a lot of confidence in what we were doing We also had Kelli O’Hara and Steven Pasquale and every time they opened their mouth it was gold. You couldn’t help but be mesmerized by what they were doing. That gave us confidence in what we were doing.
Jason Robert Brown is top two if not my favorite composer ever. Parade is one of my favorite shows and I think he’s just a genius. The music he wrote was just beautiful. There were so many amazing elements to that show.
Whether a musical succeeds on Broadway, there are so many things: the timing, the venue, the publicity…There are so many different reasons as to why it may or may not have worked. No matter what, we create something special and Jason was rewarded for that. That record will forever be idolized and looked up to.
That’s just a few of Derek’s shows. Tomorrow we’ll have part two of our interview with him where we’ll discuss a couple other shows and get his views on his latest project, the highly- anticipated Broadway production of Jagged Little Pill.
For tickets go here.
Klena will also be performing on Thursday, August 8th at Martini’s Above Fourth in San Diego. For tickets go here.
To see part two of my interview with Derek please go here.
Main photo courtesy of FitForBroadway.com