Jeremy Jordan :: Finding Stardom in 'Neverland'

In just a few years, Jeremy Jordan has emerged as one of the Broadway musical's rising stars. National audiences, though, recognize him from "Smash," the cult NBC series about putting on a Broadway show. This month he's starring in a new musical, "Finding Neverland," en route to Bway. EDGE spoke to Jordan recently.

Jeremy Jordan has a charmed life in the musical theater. Not that it isn't deserved -- with his charismatic, dark looks and supple, powerful voice, he's developed into the kind of leading man that once thrived on the Broadway stage now missing in this age of Divas. This may be why he's emerged so strongly in the past five years, headlining two original musicals -- one a hit, "Newsies," and one a flop, "Bonnie and Clyde;" had a featured role onscreen in a musical dramedy "A Joyful Noise" (featuring Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton); and took charge of the second season of "Smash" -- the NBC series about the making of a Broadway musical -- where he played a brooding songwriter on his way up. (Brooding is the operative word here.)

"I always get wrangled into playing the charming, but brooding young man-roles," he explained recently from Cambridge, MA. "And I can be brooding sometimes, but not quite that much, though, thankfully."

Headed to Broadway

Jordan is speaking from the dressing room at Loeb Drama Center in Cambridge, MA recently occupied by Bryan Cranston during the run of the Tony-winning "All The Way" before it went to Broadway. He's there having taken the lead role in the musical version of "Finding Neverland," a new musical based on the 2004 film about how J.M. Barrie came to write "Peter Pan," that is currently at the Loeb with hopes it will follow the same trajectory as "All The Way." (It will. Plans are for the musical, co-produced by the ART and Harvey Weinstein, is planned for a March, 2015 Broadway opening at a theater yet to be announced.)

That wouldn't be unusual. The regional theater under the artistic direction of Diane Paulus has turned Cambridge into something of the old-fashioned "try-out" town for plays and musicals, both old and new. Last season saw "All the Way" and a highly-regarded revival of "The Glass Menagerie" move to successful New York runs; the previous season it was "Pippin," and the year before that the imaginative reworking of "Porgy and Bess" as a musical, retitled "The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess;" the latter two both Tony-winning Best Revivals. The ART was also the place where the Tony-winning "Once" got its start, which only adds to its allure as the regional theater that can be both commercially and artistically viable in the 21st century.

A darkness

Undaunted, Weinstein pressed forward. He replaced the artistic team, bringing on British pop artist Gary Barlow to write the songs (along with Eliot Kennedy) and James Graham to revise the book. He also put Paulus in charge of the production, which is currently doing great business at the Loeb Drama Center after opening to upbeat reviews last week.

Which brings us back to Mr. Jordan, who was cast as J.M. Barrie is this speculative story on how the Edwardian playwright came to write "Peter Pan," his most famous work. In the film, Barrie, played by Johnny Depp, is in career meltdown: his latest play is a failure and he's at wits end about his future. A chance meeting in the park with a young widow, Sylvia Davies, and her four sons, leads to a new friendship and, more significantly, an idea for a play about a boy who won't grow up, can fly and fights pirates in an alternative world called Neverland. After a turbulent start, the play is a huge success; but proves bittersweet for Barrie and the four Davies boys after Sylvia passes on shortly after the play opens. ("J.M. Barrie has a fatal touch for those he loves," tartly observed his contemporary D.H. Lawrence. "They die.")

"There's a lot of serious elements to J.M. Barrie," Jordan observes, "There's a darkness; he has demons inside him. But it's also one of the most fun parts I've ever done. At the core J.M. Barrie is a child -- he's a child stuck inside a man's body. Barrie is quirky and goofy and playful, and me, And me, Jeremy, I am a much more of a quirky character myself."

Everything's on the page

Jordan remembers seeing the film years ago, but did not return to see it after he was cast this Spring. He did, though, research Barrie before starting rehearsals. "You keep that information in your brain until you know how you are going to create your version. There are so many factual things about what really happened, and a lot of speculation, and it is great to have that in your brain. But at the end of the day you're doing what's written on the page. The old adage used by actors that 'everything is on the page' -- everything you need is there.

"But you want to feel that you are part of the creative process. You want to be informed by the factual events but also bring new and interesting things to the character. Especially since he lived before there was video. We never got to see him at this period in his life and see exactly what he was like. We can read about it, but that's about all we can do; so we get to use our imaginations more."

"Finding Neverland" found itself at the center of an unexpected controversy following the Tony Awards in June. At the tail end of the long program, no less than Jennifer Hudson (along with the young actors cast as the Davies boys in the new production) sang "Neverland," an anthem from the show, in full-bodied pop delivery. It was an unabashed promotion for the new show, but critics pointed out that its inclusion in the ceremony came at the cost of cutting the 'In Memoriam' section to national audiences. Nor did Jordan, who sings the song in the show, get to do it nationally.

"She sang it like a true radio pop song," Jordan said. "But this is theater. It's a song within a theatrical piece, so it is not going to be performed as if I were an American Idol contestant. It's a song sung with heart and passion and imagination and hope. It has pop elements in it that are intrinsic written in the phrases and in its chord structures, but as an actor I focus more on the lyrics and how they should be put across instead of what sounds the coolest or the poppiest or the prettiest."

Working steadily

That its composer is Gary Barlow only indicates the score will have a pop flavor. He has been one of Britain's leading performers (he got his start as the lead singer of Take That in 1989 before embarking on a solo career) and songwriter (he has written 13 number 1 singles in the UK and 2 Billboard Hot 100 top 10 singles in the United States). "It's more a pop-inspired score," Jordan acknowledges. "But has traditional musical theater elements as well.

There are hints of the era in the score, and there are some straight-up pop songs as well. It's a bit eclectic, which is fitting because J.M. Barrie was anything but an ordinary character and was ahead of this time in many aspects of his life, especially creatively."

While Jordan has worked steadily since arriving in New York, first in the cast of "Rock of Ages," then as an understudy to Tony in "West Side Story." His first starring role came as Clyde Barrow in the short-lived "Bonnie and Clyde" in 2011, which he followed with "Newsies," the Disney hit that got him a Tony nomination. About this time he made his film debut in "A Joyful Noise."

About 'Smash'

His biggest splash, though, was in "Smash," the adventurous NBC series about putting on a new Broadway musical. He played Jimmie Collins, a brooding (that word again), ambitious songwriter with a shadowy past who gets a break when the innovative musical he writes with his college best friend gets picked up and finds its way to Broadway. Oh, yes; he also gets show's the leading lady -- played by American Idol alumni Katharine McPhee.

"I had a blast doing 'Smash!'" he said. "I learned a whole lot about television, about acting for the camera. I learned a lot about music and recording. Made some great friends. We had a blast on set doing it. It's sad that not everyone got on to the fun as much as we did doing it, but that's how it was. It certainly wasn't a perfect show. It was flawed. I'm sure there could have been different ways to approach it. But it was a formula that nobody really knew, that wasn't really in place.

"Doing a show with original music every week, presenting the material in the way we were presenting it was new territory. And it is difficult how to do it right and get an audience to watch it in the first place. When people started to watch it, they stayed with it. But it go backs to the old thing -- how do you get people to watch a show about theater when in America a whole lot of people know nothing about it? One of the aims of the show was to get people more interested in theater, but if you can't hook them, it's hard to get the ball rolling."

It didn't, though, make him instantly recognizable outside of Times Square. "I usually am wearing a hat and have facial hair, so I don't get recognized much at all. Which is nice. I don't know how it would be if I was recognized a lot. It's novel at first, but at one point it gets to be -- I don't know how it gets to be -- you don't feel safe."

Breaking character

Watch the ART's trailer for "Finding Neverland":