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Article IndexBY PAULA SCHWARTZ
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
It’s the thick of the theater award season, what with the Tonys, the Obies, and as we affectionately call them, the Drama Critics Circlies, the Drama Leaguies, the Drama Deskies, the Outer Critics Circlies and the Inner Critics Circlies (okay, we made that last one up).
The reception for the, ahem, Drama Desk Award nominees was Monday at Oceana Restaurant in midtown. (The Awards will take place Sunday, June 3 at 8 p.m. at Town Hall.) We hustled past pushy photographers and protective publicists to get to some of the brightest stars on Broadway, including newbies like Jeremy Jordan (“Newsies”) and veterans like Linda Lavin (“The Lyons”). Here are excerpts:
Tom Edden, featured actor in a play for the slapstick comedy “One Man, Two Guvnors,” a hit in London, where it originated at the National Theater:
Was he nervous American audiences would get everything?
“That was certainly our anxiety at the beginning. Our fear that maybe it was too idiosyncratic, that it was too sort of colloquial, but I think the adjustments, small adjustments that have been made, sort of paid off, and the big laughs, the big, big belly laughs are universal really, so hopefully they’ve been charmed into the environment of the play, which is alien,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anything really left to alienate an audience.”
Jeremy Jordan, best actor in a musical for “Newsies, the Musical,” based on the 1992 Disney movie musical about the newsboy strike of 1899. The New York Times review called him “a natural star who has no trouble holding the stage.” The 27-year old actor also starred in the short-lived musical “Bonnie & Clyde” and “Joyful Noise,” a film co-starring Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah:
Some people have called it the Occupy Wall Street play. What does he think?
“A little bit,” the actor laughed. “You can draw parallels to lots of things, but most of all I think it’s a David and Goliath story. It’s about people who are powerless, becoming powerful, and I think that’s a story that anybody anywhere can relate to, unless you’re like really powerful, and then you feel bad.”
Matt Cavenaugh, featured actor in a musical, for “Death Takes a Holiday,” which had a limited run Off Broadway last year:
How did you get audiences out to that show? What drew them in?
“Are saying ‘Death Takes a Holiday’ is not a real marketable title?”
Do you want to live eternally?
“Yes. Sure.”
Have you considered your own options?
“No, but I should soon because Dec. 21st is coming up soon, right? And the Mayans say it’s all over then, so I better get on that. I’m a big procrastinator though, so say by the 20th I’ll have a plan.”
