This is my interview with Gavin when he was touring in Into the Woods. Thank you Gavin for your time, your artistry and your generosity. You will truly be missed.

Whether that’s intrinsically a part of the characters he’s playing or just who he is as an actor, Ceel is easily one of the most likable people in musicals today. Take his performance as The Wolf and Cinderella’s Prince in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods. Even though The Wolf is menacing (in a dandy sort of way) and the Prince is “raised to be charming, not sincere,” Creel is sincerely charming and, when the role calls for it, charmingly sincere.

Into the Woods is finishing its mini-tour of ten cities with a final stop in Los Angeles at the Ahmanson Theatre. The show runs June 27th – July 30th. Creel, who played the part on Broadway, is joined by many of the production’s Broadway cast including Sebastian Arcelus, Stephanie J. Block, Katy Geraghty, Montego Glover, Kennedy Kanagawa and Nancy Opel.

I recently spoke with Creel who was in San Francisco for the penultimate stop of Into the Woods. In our conversation we talked about Stephen Sondheim, why the cast took this show on the road and about his own show, Walk on Through: Confessions of a Museum Novice, which will have its world premiere in November at MCC Theater in New York. Los Angeles audiences can get a preview of that show when Creel performs at The Hotel Cafe in Hollywood on July 24th.

What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: In 2003 you were in Stephen Sondheim’s Bounce [later renamed Road Show] in Chicago and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. What did you learn from that experience of working on Sondheim’s material that perhaps informs the work you’re now bringing to Into the Woods? 

What comes to mind is that I watched the greatest, at that time, living musical theater composer and arguably the greatest living producer director of our musical theater time: Hal Prince. I watched them in the mud. I got to watch them trying to make the lotus blossom. And if I’m honest, it wasn’t successful. Obviously it wasn’t commercially successful, but it was bumpy. 

I did this very foolish innocently enough thing of deciding that they must come out of the womb formed. These ideas must just be hatched in brilliance. And I was like, Oh yeah, this moment isn’t really that great. Sondheim can write something that’s really not that great. And then Sondheim goes, “This is really not that great. How do I make this great or I can do this here and do this, and then watch it become something that went to the next level.” To see that in front of you is very humbling and an encouraging and freeing experience. 

How would you compare the process of working on a musical with Stephen Sondheim to working on one of his most successful musicals, arguably his most successful musical, without him any longer?

It was sad, I have to say. James Lapine, on the first day of rehearsal, we all circled up and everybody and there was a space next to him. He said, “It’s odd to me that there’s a space. I feel like Steve made a space for himself. This is a bittersweet moment because we’re all here to lift this beautiful piece up and I’m honored that you’re doing this piece that I wrote with Steve, and Steve would be standing next to me.”

This is sounds woo woo, but I think Steve was guiding us from the other side. I still feel a presence. It’s a rock concert response to our show in a way that James is like, I don’t understand what’s happening. It’s crazy. I think that is definitely a testament to the show being so beloved for almost 40 years. But I also think we were guided. I think there was a spirit on the other side. The best spirit of all going, “I’m going to help.” It got into all of our hearts. 

When I saw the show at the St. James in New York in December it looked to me like everybody was having the time of their lives, which is not easy to do as an actor. How much of it is the fact that you are all genuinely having a good time?

It is really hard to fake joy in that way. Even if you’re doing a really good job of it, the audience can sniff it out. I’m personally having the time of my life. I did not expect to be a part of this. I was going to go watch my best friend Sara [Bareilles who was the original Baker’s Wife] in the concert at City Center. And then [director] Lear deBessonet called me and was like, “Hey, would you ever consider coming in?” The first time my ego was like, I don’t want to play that part. I want to be the baker. And then I thought about it. Let’s just do the job. I need the health insurance. I’ll have a good time. I’ll get to hang out with Sara again. We had such a good time doing Waitress for that small amount of time together [in 2019]. Here I am, over a year later, still getting to tell the story across the country. We are literally still having fun and I can’t believe this leg of it is going to be done in six weeks. It’s nuts. We’re very sad to let it go. 

Many of you who appeared in this production on Broadway have come together to continue telling this story. That is very rare these days for so many cast members to take a show on the road. Why do you think the mold was broken for Into the Woods? 

I think the world has changed since what we went through. The pandemic changed me. Certainly I can speak for myself of just really appreciating what you have in a new way. I just don’t think we were ready to let it go. What a gift! This just dropped in my lap. Personally, I could save money. I could work. I could see the country. I could take a breath from everything that we’ve been through. I think that story sort of whispered through the building. Gavin’s going to go and hey, you think about going on? Let me tell you why I’m going. When does this ever happen? We could actually all go together. Our show was definitely closing [in New York] because New York, New York needed a theater. We had to close, but we didn’t feel ready to be finished. 

I think one of the one of the main things that Sondheim wanted to get across with this particular work, and he said so in an interview around the time of the release of the film, was that the message of Into the Woods is about community responsibility. There’s obviously a sense of community within Broadway. There’s a sense of community within this company. Do you think that this musical offers any insight into how we perhaps can better serve ourselves by coming together as a community in our regular lives? 

Yes. I think it’s two parts, to be honest. The whole thing starts with “I wish, more than anything.” If we can acknowledge that everybody wants something for themselves then we can see the shared community in that fact. How wonderful it would be if we could help each other get what each other wants. And this musical lays that out so beautifully.

The other I was going to say is when you said that about community, no one is alone. On the surface it seems like it means I’m with you. But also I’m with you in helping you get what you want. We can work together to help you achieve your dreams. There’s always a force outside of you that’s greater than you, that is against you in some way. The giant isn’t bad. “Witches can be right. Giants can be good. You decide what’s right. You decide what’s good.” The giant is just trying to do what they can to survive. We can see the community in that statement, which is what I think the show really illuminates. It means more than just you’re not alone, as in you don’t have to be sad and lonely. It means you’re not alone in your desires, your dreams, your wishes, your hopes. I’ve got them, too. So let’s both dream together.

You’ve been working on Confessions of a Museum Novice for a while and you’ve been performing it a concert version off and on in different places. How has the work evolved since you first started sharing this with the world? 

It continues to evolve. Originally I was invited to have a meeting with Limor Tomer and Erin Flannery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art who run the Live Art series. They said, would you like to come to the Met? We’ll give you a membership card at the museum. Look around. And when you find a piece of art or pieces, anything that you’re inspired by within the building, let us know and we’ll help you produce a show for one night at the Met. I’d never been there. I was an imposter syndrome times a million. I’m not a huge fine art person. Museums tend to overwhelm me, but I went for it. 

We ended up doing it in October of 2021 with a fully masked audience for two shows and it was electric. I have to turn this into a musical. I have to expand this a bit, too. I still play Gavin Creel. It’s still about a man who’s having a sort of a midlife meltdown who for some reason called the Metropolitan Museum of Art to try to figure his life out by walking through and figuring out what’s going on. It’s about love and life and art and loneliness and ultimately forgiveness and love again.

What we’re going to do in L.A. is we’re going to do the first 45 minutes of the show to give people a taste. And then we’re going to do some covers, theater and pop covers to give people some stuff they know.

Let’s go back 17 years ago to when your album GoodTimeNation came out. You have a song on there about what Might Still Happen. What has you most optimistic about what might still happen to you personally and professionally?

I wrote that as a kid 20 years ago on the roof of my studio apartment; 250 square feet. Some of the hardest and happiest times I’ve had. One of the best lessons of living in New York in 250 square feet is you have everything you need in that much space. Anything past that is icing. I have a two bedroom apartment, thank God now, but I could live in 200 square feet if you made me. I might sell it all and just chill. My buddy Robbie Roth, who I made my first two records with, we would crawl up to the roof illegally because the fire door didn’t shut. We would sit up there, put a blanket down and pick around with melodies. That song is ultimately about heartbreak, but it’s hope.

It was a call to my future self. It makes me emotional to think about the idea of being a young person and feeling really sad but saying there’s good stuff coming, keep going. You can’t know the future, so just sit in the present. Just be. Get yourself a beer, get a friend, get a guitar, get on the roof, look out over the city. There’s possibility everywhere.

Not to bring it back to Into the Woods, but I was really broken before the pandemic, through the pandemic and after. It was just a terrible time in my life. Into the Woods was like this beautiful life raft that not only buoyed me out of storm, but it continued to lift me and set me down on solid ground. I will never forget this time that I’ve had and I just hope that we pack the house at the Ahmanson because I want to go out with a bang.

To see the full interview with Gavin Creel, please go here.

Main Photo: Gavin Creel in the Broadway production of Into the Woods (Photo by Matthew Murphy and Ryan Zimmerman for MurphyMade/Courtesy Center Theatre Group)

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Those seemingly disparate tracks collided when Tepper chose to launch a series of books on the history of the theaters that are still open and those who have found themselves in the dustbin of history. That series, The Untold Stories of Broadway, started when the first book was released in 2013.

Eight years later, Volume 4 has been published. Each book is an oral history (with everyone from stagehands and doormen to creators and performers) on a selection of theaters that are still running and, until this most recent edition, one that no longer existed. Volume 4 has a significant section on what are referred to as The Big Five* theaters that were demolished in 1982 to make way for what is now the Marriot Marquis Hotel and the Marquis Theatre.

Tepper herself is more than just a historian. She has been handling the programming at Feinstein’s/54 Below for a number of years and was one of the producers of the musical Be More Chill.

Recently I spoke by phone with Tepper about Broadway theaters and their history, the naming of theaters and what Broadway might look like on the other side of the pandemic. What follows has been edited for length and clarity.

Before musicals became juggernauts like The Phantom of the Opera and the revival of Chicago, theaters, particularly as described in your book, would experience a far higher rate of turnover than they do now. Do massively long-running shows post as much a problem as they do a financial windfall?

That’s a good question. Broadway is like an eco-system. The long-running shows that have come along, while they do take up theaters, it has allowed Broadway to thrive. People who come to see Hamilton then see five other shows. If you look at the 80s and the early 90s, half the Broadway houses were empty – even with long-running shows. While at the same time, there is a sense that it might be better in some ways if some shows would not run forever and ever.

The Ambassador was a theater that was really long-struggling and hadn’t had a life for years. Chicago changed that. The Gershwin was the same until Wicked. They do have better lives afterwards.

Have you seen a show in each of the theaters you have or will be writing about?

Other than the lost Broadway theaters, yes. I never got to see a show in those. It was fascinating to do interviews about those lost theaters. To do what are called The Big Five that were demolished at all one time. That really changed Broadway history by making it so other theaters were landmarked and couldn’t be torn down.

You make an effort to go as far back as possible when providing the oral history of these theaters. Is there an urgency to get interviews with people like Stephen Sondheim (who turned 91 on Monday) and others who are frankly getting quite old?

That’s been such a thing from the beginning. We’ve had thirteen interviewees pass away since the last book was published. This is a legacy project and I want each history to go back as far as possible. In this book writing about the Morosco and the Gaiety, there’s no one around. It’s always been a level of urgency.

Doug Katsaros (Orchestrator who did dance arrangements for Rockabye Hamlet) drops a little unknown bomb in this book stating that director/choreographerGower Champion died of AIDS in 1980. Was this common knowledge amongst the theater community? I couldn’t find anything publicly announcing that as his cause of death.

My editor and I do a lot of soul-searching about so many things people say in these books. We haven’t seen it anywhere, but that person was there and he said it. In the introduction we say this is these people’s stories and their perspectives. Sometimes three people will talk about the same performance and have three different stories. It’s hard to say. I don’t want to censor someone’s memory since they were there.

Deadline Hollywood has started their own oral history of the postponed revival of Company. One of the comments from Patti LuPone was, “I said goodbye to the Jacobs and then I thought, no, goodbye to the Royal, because the Royale had been a much more elegant theater name than the Jacobs.” What’s your opinion of the renaming of theaters? Do executives deserve the same status as playwrights or composers?

It’s not like we have 41 theaters and they are named for the 41 most esteemed people in theater history. I understand saying The Royale is a more elegant name, but Bernard B. Jacobs and Gerald Schoenfeld changed the industry through the Shubert organization. We don’t have a Hal Prince theater, so it’s not as sensical in the way that maybe some people wish it was.

If you were to write a separate update to this entire series about what the last year during the pandemic has been like for these theaters, what do you think it would have to say?

What was interesting about writing this volume during the pandemic is there are so many times in history that have parallels. Not exactly the same, but other times when there have been strikes or theaters were shut down for a tragedy or natural disaster. That was something interesting to think about. I saw someone working on the marquee at the Imperial. That guy has a story and he’s the only one who’s been in that house for months. I’m sure there will be stories to tell.

What role with theater play when we are all finally able to go back with Playbills in hand and enjoy a show?

There will be shows that will be more uplifting and people will want to be cheered up. Some people will want to go and see something political and reflect the time we are living through. Others will explore other times that are parallel. I’m excited about making theatre. The next step will be to get in a room and work on something.

*The Big Five Theaters were The Astor, The Bijou, The Gaiety, The Helen Hayes and The Morosco

Photo: Jennifer Ashley Tepper (Photo by Stephanie Wessels/Courtesy Dress Circle Publishing)

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Which makes her the perfect actress to play the role of the Dowager Empress in Anastasia. The character has to be convinced that a young woman may actually be her long-lost granddaughter, the only survivor of the brutal murders of the Romanov family. This is a woman who has been through a lot and has seen a lot. As has Franz.

Recently I spoke with Franz by phone about Anastasia and about her experiences working with artists who need no first names:  Sondheim, Fosse and Prince. But first, Flaherty and Ahrens (composer/lyricist of Anastasia.)

What inspires you most about the songs they have written for Anastasia?

What inspires me most, besides the gorgeous melodies, are the lyrics. They are very poignant and very current with the messages that Lynn has written. It is very inspiring for anyone: girls, boys, adults. It’s very inspiring and empowering. And, of course, Terrance McNally’s book! I just love him.

You said in an interview with the Kare Reviews podcast that Anastasia was the most perfect show you’ve ever been involved with. What makes the show more perfect than some of the legendary musicals in which you’ve appeared?

Oh dear, did I say “the most?” (She then laughs very broadly.) Actually Into the Woods is the most perfect and this is right up there with it. Not only does it talk about love and hope and family, it’s also saying never give up on your dreams. Perseverance, strength, courage, that’s what I feel is the very important message this show provides. 

Let’s talk about some of those shows. The first show you saw was also your first show: Sweet Charity. What do you remember most about your first night?

Oh my gosh. Am I going to be able to swing my leg over that? I wasn’t a dancer. Am I really going to get my leg over that dance barre? I didn’t know how to move my hips back then. I was so naïve. People apologized for swearing in front of me and now I cuss up a storm.

Fosse/Verdon depicted a not very charismatic Fosse. With your experiences in Sweet Charity and Pippin, what do yo think is most misunderstood about who Fosse was as a man?

He went through all the things he went through, with drugs and stuff. I think there’s always something that one wants to escape from their own reality. Maybe he totally didn’t accept himself as the great master that he was. I don’t know.  

He was a charmer. He was electrifying to watch and be around. Kind of like Lenny Bernstein (with whom she worked on Mass,) everyone fell in love with him. Bob was such a genius.

From Company through to Assassins, you had a front row seat and a perspective on how Sondheim evolved through his career. Why do you think revivals of some of the shows you’ve been in are being far more warmly received than the original productions?

I think the audiences have been educated and have become more aware with the sensibilities and insights that Steve has. He’s just so progressive and was just way ahead of his time in writing. I mean no one else really wrote like him with shows that depict or went into the psychology of the people that he wrote about – which was all part of him, I believe. And what he was going through in looking for love and acceptance.

Producer/director Hal Prince passed away recently. What set Prince apart and what do you think current producers can learn from him?

He could paint that stage and the way he directed he was visionary. He could paint like Picasso and coming from being a stage manager, he was one of the greats, if not the greatest.

Apart from musicals you played the role of the mother in Marsha Norman’s ‘Night Mother. That couldn’t be further from what most audiences know of you. How did that experience challenge you?

I loved doing that play. That was a really wonderful experience and challenge. The depth and the desperation to try to save her daughter. I could relate to the desperateness of wanting to save someone or one’s self from going deeper. 

Julie Andrews talked about doing tours of musicals as being “lonely, but it does give you some kind of spine, I think it does give you some kind of grit.” At this point in your life and career, what does touring give you?

She’s quite right because sometimes it really is lonely. But to know that I can do this, that I can take care of myself. Although our company manager, Denny, he takes care of all of us, but I can make do with almost any situation. I can survive on my own.

Did you know you had those skills?

I would think so. Coming from Kansas City, Missouri and going to New York City with only 500 dollars. But I knew that was where I was supposed to be.

Anastasia is currently playing at Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa through November 17th.

Main Photo: Victoria Bingham and Joy Franz in Anastasia (Photo by Evan Zimmerman – MurphyMade)

Archive Broadway photos by Martha Swope/Courtesy of the New York Public Library Archives

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Hal Prince passed away today in Iceland a the age of 91. His last show on Broadway was The Prince of Broadway, a show that celebrated his legendary career. It only ran for 76 performances, but gave audiences a look into the career of a man who made the theatre his home.

Prince collaborated with everybody. That’s no exaggeration. Bob Fosse, Leonard Bernstein, Kander & Ebb, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jerome Robbins, Cy Coleman, Tim Rice, Terrence McNally, Arthur Laurents, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Jason Robert Brown and perhaps most famously, Stephen Sondheim.

Prince was the producer of West Side Story and A Funny Thing Happened… before adding director for Sondheim’s shows from Company through to Merrily We Roll Along. He also produced all those shows along the way with the exception of Sweeney Todd.

Simply put, Hal Prince was theatre royalty. And he kept working. His philosophy was always keep an eye on the future . He once said, “I don’t look back. I look forward and plan new shows. That’s really feeding the most important part of working in the theater.”

I never met Hal Prince. I saw many of his shows. As readers might know, when I saw Sweeney Todd it was like finding religion. I did, however, sit next time him once at a performance of David Mamet’s The Old Neighborhood in 1997. He wasn’t involved in the show. I assumed he was there to support Patti LuPone who played Evita.

The play was not particularly memorable. In fact, I remember finding it dull and uninspired. I don’t know what Prince thought of the play. I do firmly recall that when the cast came out for a third curtain call he said to his guest, “Oh Christ, they are coming out again!!!!” That made the entire evening for me.

Hal Prince, for better or for worse, gave us musicals as events. As spectacles. Some of them much better than others. What sets him apart from most producers today in the theatre is that he actually was passionate about it for artistic reasons, not just financial. He was a creature of the theatre. The likes of him are unlikely to be seen ever again.

“I always had a good time in theatre, even when shows don’t turn out as well as I’d like.” – Harold Prince

So did we, sir. So did we. Thank you..

Photo of Harold Prince during a rehearsal of Merrily We Roll Along by Martha Swope/Courtesy of New York Public Library Archives.

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I recently spoke with Matthews, who in addition to directing this production serves as Co-Artistic Director at Celebration Theatre, about the challenges of doing a show so strongly associated with its film, making the show his own and the perpetual topicality of the show’s themes.

How influential are other productions by Hal Prince and Sam Mendes and the Bob Fosse film for you as a director? Do you embrace their existence or act as if they never had been seen?

I have to treat it like no one has ever seen the play before, but I’d be a fool to not know. I have to make sure I don’t copy or imitate. But there’s so much in the ’98 production [that Mendes directed] that’s influenced by all of them. I’m going very very bare bones with the show. The whole theatre is done into the Kit Kat Club itself. Nothing new there. We call it our sticky floor cabaret. Your feet stick to the floor due to body fluids, sweat and blood. We have a cast of 13, so we whittled down a couple of ensemble members. It fits like a glove in that space.

What role does ambiguous sexuality play in this production? Does being at Celebration Theatre give the audience an expectation that you will be edgier than the Broadway revival had been?

Yes. Yes. Our whole show, choreographically speaking, we’re going with burlesque. All the boys and girls the movement is burlesque. It’s definitely a strip tease. Each number has a peel-away moment. We’re really going there in a great way to go with the mission of why we are doing the show. It will be very immersive and fully character-driven. No nudity though.

 We’re talking and you are about one month into rehearsals. What have you learned about Cabaret that surprised you?

That it’s a meta-musical. It’s a play with music. It was actually super refreshing. I feel like every single song happens because it has to happen. It’s necessary. Every single one. That’s why it works so well. Every song pushes the story forward.

In the past couple of years, Celebration Theatre has had great success with reinventing big splashy musicals [The Boy From Oz, Priscilla Queen of the Desert] to fit into the small space you have. Why do you think they’ve been so successful?

Michael Shepherd and I, we are storytellers and we love to tell great stories really well. We also love the intimacy the space gives us. You can do anything in that space and we’re going to make it happen. The closer people get to the show then the story gets told in a brand new way. We don’t want you to lean back and relax. We want you to scoot in and watch.

Christopher Isherwood, whose book I Am A Camera was the basis for the musical, once wrote, “If it’s going to be a world with no time for sentiment, it’s not a world I want to live in.” Is there sentiment in Cabaret that isn’t somehow sullied by the situations surrounding these characters?

Oh absolutely. There’s still sentiment at the same time as complete despair, outrage and heartbreak. It comes from it.  We care so deeply about these characters.

From your perspective, what makes Cabaret a show that not only continues to entertain, but also provokes?

My favorite thing about it, and one of the things I’m working on, is that it’s so crazy to do this show because it felt like it could have been written yesterday. It resonates so well with what’s happening today in our world. How did we not learn these lessons? That’s pretty powerful.  We’re not just doing a show for a show’s sake, but because it’s relevant. And cabaret is all about that.

Photos of the cast of “Cabaret” by Mae Koo

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Either way, diversity and unpredictability are the hallmarks of the career Davis Gaines has had so far. It’s a career  for which he’s enormously grateful and surprised. I had the chance to speak to Gaines last week in advance of his Monday concert at the Geffen Playhouse and his Friday night concert at The La Mirada Center for the Performing Arts.

What is unique about these two concerts you are doing? How are they different than Davis Gaines: Broadway and Beyond, the show you regularly tour around the country?

This evening what we are attempting to do is going back to my beginning. It’s a chronological look at how did I end up on stage at the Geffen or La Mirada.  We start from childhood and what influenced me and who influenced me. “Music of the Night” [from Phantom of the Opera] will be in the middle as opposed to the end where it would normally be for an encore.

What surprises you most about the career you’ve had?

It’s almost like a pinball machine and bumps off a bumper and I don’t know where it’s going to lead. Things in my life have been almost unbelievable. Things happened I never would have thought would happen growing up in Orlando. How I go to do Phantom through [writer/director/producer] George Abbott.  I did Damn Yankees when Mr. Abbott was 99 years old. Through him I met Hal Prince [director of Phantom.] Through that I got Phantom. I just went with the flow of my life.

It’s hard going with the flow, especially as an actor. I think you have to keep options open. It’s crazy to think as a kid, I didn’t know how to do this, but I was open to wherever it took me. I’d listen to Rosemary Clooney and John Raitt and all these people. I’d listen to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Stephen Sondheim and they ended up in my life. I worked with John Raitt. I met Rosemary Clooney and I worked with Andrew and Sondheim. As a kid I never thought that would happen. It’s just crazy.

What expectations did you have for your career once you were cast in Phantom?

I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I just said “yes” to Hal Prince. I played Raoul for a few months when the opening came out here. Michael Crawford [the original “Phantom”] was leaving and it was between me and David Cassidy. It was for a 9-month contract and I thought, “that’s too long.” It was a huge deal out here. And the show kept getting extended and then we closed. I thought I’d stay in Hollywood and thought I’d get movies and television. The show went to San Francisco and Hal called and so I went there. Then I went to New York for two-and-a-half years and they pulled me out of Phantom to do Whistle Down the Wind. [Whistle Down the Wind never made it to Broadway. it was a rare Andrew Lloyd Webber failure.] It changed my life in many ways. And eventually I got to thank Andrew.

What freedom does doing these concerts offer you and will they be the same shows in both venues?

It’s much more freeing and I have much more say in how the arrangements come about and the story I’m trying to tell through each song. This show is piano and bass only. It’s fun to put a show together that has an arc to it. I get to be me, but also in each song somehow become a character. So as opposed to playing one character in a play, I get to play 15. Each song is a different kind of character.

The Geffen show is going to be shorter than the La Mirada one. It’s only 70 minutes. La Mirada will be 90 minutes and we’ll add more visuals. I’ll sing with a video in La Mirada that we can’t do at the Geffen.

You’ve made Los Angeles your home, but have said in previous interviews that you’d love to return to Broadway by originating a role in a new show. Is that still your goal?

Not really. I thought Whistle would be my chance. Now I’d be thrilled to go back with any show. My impossible dream now is maybe to revive Man of La Mancha. That would be thrilling. I could do that role until I die. I just love that role. A new role would be nice. I am open to going back to work in New York, but I love living in Los Angeles.

Earlier you referred to your career as being like a pinball machine. What’s been the biggest lesson for you in learning how to go with the flow of you career?

What took a while to realize is that everybody brings something different to the table. Everyone has a special gift. As much as you have confidence in what makes you different and special, be yourself. Don’t think what they might want. The more you bring yourself to a role, the more of your own feelings and sense of humor, then you become more relatable to an audience. I found as an actor ways of conveying the emotion of a character and the feelings, it’s almost like being a mime. The slightest tilt of a head or with your voice. Even with a mask on you can make people feel something. Just be real and tell the truth. That’s how the audience will be sucked in.

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