AN INTERVIEW WITH JONATHAN GROFF

By Marianna Quinn Makwaia, Sophomore, Stuyvesant High School

Tony nominee Jonathan Groff, best known for playing Melchior in the increasingly popular musical Spring Awakening, will be leaving the show this May. This summer he will reprise his performance as Claude in the rock musical Hair, which will be part of the free summer festival Shakespeare in the Park. As an aspiring actress and singer I found myself lucky to talk to Jonathan about his quick rise to theatre fame, and the transition he will make this summer.

"If you end up pursuing this as a career, never lose the joy that you had when you first discovered it."

 

What was your journey? How did you get here?

The first play I ever did was in 8th grade, a homemade play called Best in the West. From that moment on I basically became sort of obsessed with performing theatre, growing, getting better and learning more. I came up to New York senior year to audition, to get my feet wet and get ready for my college auditions. The first audition I went on was for The Sound of Music, and I ended up getting it. So, much [against] some people's better judgment, I deferred Carnegie Mellon and went on tour for a year. When the tour was over I was like, 'Why don't I take the money I got from the tour and move to New York. see how I like this life before I spend four years preparing for it?' So I moved, got an acting teacher, a voice teacher and got my Equity card doing summer stock. Then, a year and half after living here, I got Spring Awakening.

An interesting connection I saw between Spring Awakening and Hair is that they both bring up political issues.

Certainly there'd be no Spring Awakening if there was no Hair to get the ball rolling. It was such an interesting thing because it's these two very substantial, rock, youthful, naked musicals I was doing at the same time, and it was political and a very unique experience that I had. I was living a music theatre kid's wet dream by doing those shows at the same time. You could see all the parallels of how they both broke the rules, how they're both trying to say something. Do you have an affinity towards that type of rock, political theatre? When I was growing up in Pennsylvania it was all classic traditional shows. I didn't even know the score of Hair until I did it. I've sort of been thrust into this other world that I never saw myself in before. I never would have imagined that I would be in a rock musical at all so this has been totally new and opened my eyes and my heart to a whole new world of theatre. And now I go see something like Passing Strange [a new rock musical] and it's what I love to see.

How do you feel leaving Spring Awakening?

I feel a lot of things. It's crazy… The people in the show have become my family and it's a small cast all the same age. Our Music Director Kimberly Grigsby said this backstage is like a dorm room, it's not like a normal backstage area; every door is open, everyone is singing, playing guitar. It's such a special thing, so to say goodbye to it is really hard. If you would've told me 5 years ago that I would be leaving a Broadway show I would've told you that you were crazy, but it gets to the point where I'm 23 and I still feel like I have so much to learn and so much to grow from. I've lived this experience to its ultimate fullest. So it feels like it's time to pass the torch to another person and let them experience it.

What do you want to be in the future?

A working actor. The great thing about this business is that you can reinvent yourself, do a new play and do something completely different. I want to continue to grow and learn new things, work on projects that I care about and with creative people that I trust who will help me grow.

Do you have any notes for aspiring future actors like myself?

I would say just throw yourself into it. If you end up pursuing this as a career, never lose the joy that you had when you first discovered it. Never lose that energy and love of what you do, because it's really easy to get into this rut-the constant rejection. It's really important that you find a class or some sort of outlet that you can stay positive about. Everything that you do should feel [as exciting as] high school theatre, as community theatre. I never drag my feet inside that theatre. I've never felt like, "Oh, now I have to go to work." It's something that I just love so much; even after 550 shows, it really is what I love to do.

Did you listen to rock music when you were growing up?

No not really. I mean the Beatles, of course, my parents listened to a lot. My mom was obsessed with Carly Simon and James Taylor. Sometimes I would listen to that stuff but never really intense rock music. It sort of became my new passion over the past 2 years. Yeah I was totally a music theater nerd in high school, doing all my shows and stuff.

And how did u get involved in hair

I went to the audition. Yeah they had an audition for the concert so I went. I came in 3 times. You know it's all about how you look with everyone else and how everyone else looks with you. It was actually perfect because the first day of auditioning was right after the first person left our cast [of Spring Awakening], Gideon Glick, and I organized a class trip to my home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and my mom brought a school bus up for us after Gideon's last performance we all drove down to Lancaster to my dad's horse farm - he trains and races horses for a living. And we slept in tents and there was some skinny dipping that happened - so we had this really hippy experience for the day and then the next day I went in and auditioned for Hair so I feel like I had a one-up because I brought that energy into the room.

Has the role of Melchior changed the way you think about the world?

Absolutely. When I was in high school I was a yes person. I would sort of do whatever anyone told me. Not that I've become a rebel in any way shape or form but you know playing Spring Awakening 8 times a week and playing Melchior 8 times a week has sort of opened my eyes to the idea of not letting the world define you, and realizing what you believe in. I've had a sort of awakening in my own life as far as realizing what I believe in, thinking about things that I should be fighting for; it's been really good. Not just sort of saying yes when someone tells you to do something. Making sure that you take your own ideas and thoughts along with you throughout the course of your life is an important thing that this show has really opened my eyes to. We're so lucky that we have such good material to perform 8 times a week and that it can really infuse your life and really infuse the way that you look at the world

Did you guys expect that there would be such a young following for Spring Awakening?

I think we knew that we probably were going to connect with kids because it's us talking about issues that kids are going through, so yes, we thought this will really resonate with people our age and younger than us because its about adolescence and the confusion of adolescence, and the joy and the pain and all of that stuff. What's been most surprising is the adults and the older generation. There was this woman in her mid forties at the stage door the other day who was like, 'when I was watching the hay loft scene I felt like I was at studio 54 and it was the early 70's and I was making eyes at the guy across the bar.' It's exciting that it can resonate with people, that what we're putting out there is speaking to people and reminding them of their youth and their adolescence -that a hayloft scene can remind someone of a bar in the 70's is a pretty exciting thing.

Certainly we didn't expect that it would A, go to Broadway and then B, last more than a few months on Broadway. We couldn't fill half the house during previews. we were like, 'there's no way we're going to last.' It's a show that makes people feel uncomfortable and brings up issues, and so we weren't sure if people were going to go for that or not. It's been a real thrill and a shock to everyone involved, our director mostly. He told us when we were off Broadway when there were rumors that we would maybe transfer, he pulled us aside and said, 'no way no way this show is moving to Broadway its not a Broadway show there's no way there's no chance. So don't get your hopes up this is definitely not going to happen.' And then I'll never forget when when we walked in the theater in the Eugene O'Neill [on Broadway], I walked into my dressing room, and Michael Mayer our director comes in. I was like, 'Michael how crazy is this! I don't know how I'm going to decorate my dressing room!' And Michael was like, 'well I wouldn't decorate it too intensely if you know what I mean.' Meaning we're probably not going to be here for too long. But here we are now a year and a half later still on Broadway, it's surreal.

What was it like auditioning for Spring Awakening?

It was an intense process. They were looking for really specific people and a specific group of people. And the first time I read the script I was totally confused. On paper you can't imagine it, the lyrics are so poetic and the change of singing to the audience and whatever… I didn't quite understand it. And then the first week that did a little workshop of it everyone was in their own rooms learning their songs and scenes, and the first day was a Friday and we sat there and read through the whole thing. Lauren Pritchard, who used to play Ilsa and I went out to dinner afterwards and we were like, 'this is awesome, this is so great.' It really came to life in that 1st read-through, we knew we were working on something that was really unique and really special

How do you feel about the character of Claude in Hair?

It's so different from Spring Awakening. Claude is the polar opposite of Melchior in that Melchior knows what he wants, fights for what he wants, is very direct, very passionate, you know follows his instinct and goes for it 100% whether its right or wrong or whatever. Claude spends the whole time not knowing what to do. He's completely torn about what he wants, and what he believes in. He's sort of like Hamlet in that his indecisiveness leads to his demise in the end. Hamlet is actually quoted in Hair - the "what a piece of work is man" line is in there, that whole sort of segment of Hamlet is musicalized in Hair. Which is why they're doing Hair and Hamlet both at the Public Theater this summer - they're bridging the gap in that way. But Claude can't fully commit to being a hippy 100%, and yet he can't fully commit to believing in the war in any way, shape, or form. But with the pressure of his family and the pressure of his parents, and the pressure of his friends as hippies, its sort of like he's left somewhere in the middle and it ends tragically. He's also so warm and open, and Melchior is open of course to a point but very focused, very singular in his ideals. It was so weird doing those at the same time. When I did Hair for those 3 days we were outside, we were in the park and dancing around. Then I came back into Spring Awakening - I've never felt so trapped inside of my body before. It's so buttoned up in our show which I had gotten used to, but after being so expressive and open and jumping around and singing to step back into that I learned so much more about Spring Awakening after having that Hair experience.

New York Shakespeare Festival (How to get your free tickets)

Hamlet May 27-June 24.
Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical July 22-Aug. 17.

In Central Park: Pick up your FREE tickets to Shakespeare in the Park (two per person) on the day of the performance beginning at 1PM at The Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

The time one needs to arrive varies, as line-up begins much earlier. The box office can give approximate timeframes in advance. The closest entrances to the Delacorte are at 81st Street and Central Park West or 79th Street and Fifth Avenue.

Online: The Public Theater is launching the virtual line initiative this summer to increase accessibility to Park shows. While the majority of the tickets will still be given out at the line in Central Park, a limited number of tickets will be available each show day online. The virtual line will allow people who are registered at The Public Theater Web site to log-on the day of a show (starting at midnight) to submit a request for up to two tickets. At 1PM, they can log-on to the theater Web site again to see if they have received tickets for that evening's performance. The tickets will be held at the box office and a valid photo ID will be required. The selection process is completely random and is not determined by what time of day a person submits a request for tickets.
For more information: www.publictheater.org

 

 

This revival of the hit musical, Gypsy, tells the true tale of Gypsy Rose Lee, one of the world's most infamous strippers. This dramatic story follows Mama Rose and her vaudeville act, starring her talented daughter Baby June, while her quiet, not talented other daughter Louise plays bit parts. While the two grow up, Mama Rose's controlling nature becomes too much, and the girls react in very different ways. With classic show-tunes and humorous dance numbers, this production has been getting rave reviews, as have musical theatre legend Patti LuPone as Mama Rose, and the endearing Laura Benanti as Louise.

To read what Hannah Perri and Christa Tandana thought of the show, in their Gypsy dia "plog," go to www.playbyplayonline.org/plog

Gypsy by Arthur Laurents, Stephen Sondheim and Jules Styne. $27 student tickets. o St. James Theatre, 246 W. 44th St. www.gypsyonbroadway.com

 

 

 

Thurgood

In 1967, Thurgood Marhall became the first African American to join the Supreme Court. Without him, and the strides he made in his career and in the government, who knows where Barack Obama would be these days? Film star Laurence Fishburne plays this iconic figure in the one-man show, which has just arrived on Broadway. This play documents the life-both public and private-of Thurgood Marshall, weaving in direct quotes from Mr. Marshall all along the way. If you're looking for a little inspiration this summer, look no further than Thurgood.

Thurgood $26.50 student rush. o Booth Theatre, 222 W. 45 St