Gay&Night Maart 2016

216
‘Pippin in
Carré is going
to be bigger
and more
spectacular’
So now that it’s set in a circus, does that mean you’re
doing acrobatics as well?
‘Yep! I did a lot of training for that – I worked with a
circus trainer. And still, before every performance
there’s an hour of circus training. Before every single
show, eight shows a week. Just to keep the skills up.
What I do in the show is really difficult for me, but the
actual acrobats in the show are really doing deathdefying
acts. Things that have to be constantly trained
and perfected, it’s not something you can just leave for
a few days.’
I’ve noticed that when big productions from abroad
come to Amsterdam, often they’ve been scaled down
signicantly. How has Pippin been trimmed?
‘It hasn’t! If anything, it has been scaled up! I’ve done a
couple of tours, even just national tours in the US, and
they were very scaled down, just so they could move
from city to city. Pippin is the only show I’ve been a
part of that is exactly the same, physically, as it was on
Broadway. The set is exactly the same size, it’s the exact
same number of performers. If anything, the costumes
are a little bit ashier and bigger, so the larger
audiences can see them. On Broadway, our theater sat
around 900 people – Carré seats more than twice as
many. So if anything, I’d say things have gotten bigger
and more spectacular. And that’s a very rare thing.’
presence, we interact with them and things like that.
So every once in a while we get to go out into the
audience and interact with people, so that’s a little bit
different. But you’re right about the technicality of a
show like that. People underestimate the number of
people it takes to put on a Broadway show. You may see
25 people on stage, but there are 75 people backstage.
Your choreography off stage is just as intense, if not
more complicated, than it is on stage. Where you go, to
change costumes, change your wig, change your mic
pack, all those kinds of things. It’s very planned-out and
precise. Backstage is a wild place, it’s always a moving,
energetic place to be. And you appreciate the people
who work behind the scenes. When I go off stage, and I
have to stand there, my dresser changes all my clothes,
someone touches up my make-up, someone xes my
microphone, some else xes my hair. They’re so good
at doing all of that stuff so fast, in all that chaos. They’re
very skilled people. I get to work with great people.’
You’ve been to Amsterdam before, and you’ve seen the
Carré theater where you’ll be performing the show,
right? How did you like Carré?
‘Yeah, I was there in December and August. Carré is
wonderful! I think Pippin is the perfect show for that
space, with the rich circus tradition that they have
there. It’s a gorgeous historic theater. Our cast is going
to be thrilled to be in Amsterdam, playing there.’
‘Your
choreography
off
stage is just
as intense as
on stage’
What is it like for you to go back to doing Pippin?
‘We do these kinds of shows eight times a week,
hundreds and hundreds of times. I’ve done 400 or
500 performance of Pippin by now, I think I’ve done
maybe 2,000 performances of Wicked. I think people
underestimate the grind of it all. People always say “oh,
it must be so much fun doing a show like that!” and I
love it, but I’m not sure if fun is the right word for it. We
do it over and over and over. That’s what’s so exciting
about this touring production of Pippin; on Broadway
you go to the same theater every day, you do the show
for kind of the same mix of tourists. It’s going to be
so exciting to be doing Pippin in The Netherlands, at
Carré, because it’s going to be a completely new kind
of audience. In a completely different setting. I think
it’s going to inuence and change the show a lot, for
the better. Fresher and more exciting. It’s the European
premier of this version of Pippin. Sometimes people
don’t realize how cool it is for us as actors to get to
break up the monotony and get to do the show in a
fresh space like that. It’s going to be a magical and
amazing experience, and I’m so excited for it.’
Broadway shows always seem incredibly technical. Is
there any room in Pippin for spontaneity?
‘There is a little bit in this show. In Pippin, unlike
other shows, there’s no “fourth wall”. In normal shows
you’re on stage, and you pretend the audience isn’t
really there. In Pippin we acknowledge the audience’s
Let’s talk about Nashville for a bit; you play Kevin, an
openly gay songwriter who starts to work with Will,
a closeted gay singer, and they develop some kind of
relationship. Have you ever been in Kevin’s situation
in real life, dating someone who wasn’t ready to be out
yet?
‘Yeah! Absolutely. I dated someone who wasn’t just
closeted in his professional life, but in life – period. This
was over ten years ago. It was completely frustrating. I
recall saying to him: this isn’t going to work out, if every
time someone knocks on your front door, I literally
have to hide in a closet. It wasn’t good. And he actually
did tell his family while we were dating. He had a long
coming out phase, which was not nearly as painful as he
thought it would be. I actually kind of forgot about that
whole experience.’
Have you ever experienced difficulty coming out or
being out in the public eye, like the ‘Will’ character
has?
‘I think at a certain point in my life I did, when I was
younger. Especially when I was living in Arkansas, I
felt… Not ashamed, but I just didn’t want to open that
can of worms. You don’t want to deal with people and
their opinions all the time. You don’t always want to
get into a political argument with some very religious
person in Arkansas. I think I shied away from it then,
but now I don’t care at all, and I will say whatever the
hell I want to say, regarding whom I love.’
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