Newsies for Nathan

These past few days have sure been a whirlwind! Last Monday July 9th I got seen at the Equity call for the Broadway Musical Newsies. [Telsey and Company] cast this show and I've auditioned for them numerous times! Justin Huff from Telsey was in the room and recognized me, which is only a good thing, and I left feeling good about my audition. That same week, on Thursday - I got a call from [Telsey and Company] telling me they wanted to bring me in for a callback for Newsies for the standby of the lead role - Jack Kelly. A standby means, someone who is ready to perform at any moment during the event that the lead actor hurts themselves and wouldn't be able to finish the performance. Or, if the lead actor calls out for any reason. In this case, the lead actor (Jeremy Jordan) is about to start shooting Season 2 of Smash so they needed an immediate standby so that they could have someone ready since his schedule is about to get pretty crazy.

Let's back track a little bit. I got the call on Thursday of last week and they told me my audition was Tuesday, July 17th. They emailed me the material. It was 5 scenes and one whole song. This is quite a lot of material. Especially when dealing with an accent. Newsies is about the true story of the newsboy strike in 1899. The broadway musical is based off of the Disney movie which premiered in 1992 with Christian Bale. I immediately began preparing for the material by memorizing it. I met with a dialect coach to go over the New York accent. I saw the Bway show for the second time. I met with an acting coach and I even asked some questions to one of the ensemble members understudying the role in the show. I wanted to cover all of my bases because I knew that this was huge opportunity. Whitney was a HUGE help in this whole process. She is such a great coach and really challenged and stretched my acting abilities. We're so lucky to be in the same profession. I had everything memorized by Sunday evening. I was feeling prepared confident and excited. My audition on Tuesday went really well. Later that afternoon I got a call for a final callback! They told me that it would be Wednesday (today) for the director and associate director of Newsies. THIS IS HUGE - Whit and I both started screaming. I mean, we were thinking by the end of this week, my life could drastically change!

I went to my final callback today and there were about 20 other actors auditioning as well. I'm thinking wow, so many guys are still being considered for this. (I thought going in that they had narrowed it down to a smaller number by this point - but that unfortunately was not the case). I went in to my audition and there was Jeff Calhoun the director, whom has done numerous other Bway productions. I was auditioning for the top dogs! They had me do the song first, and I felt really great about it. The Lord was giving me such favor through this whole experience. Then we did the first scene and I flubbed one of the lines but felt connected with the rest. And just like that... that was it!!! They just said, "nice work, thank you so much." And I was done. I knew at that moment that I was no longer being considered. I know this because later that afternoon they were having another callback for Thomas Schumacher and he is the TOP PRODUCER for Disney Theatrics. And they hadn't asked me to stay.

I left feeling completely defeated and confused. I just wanted to get to the very end. Is that too much to ask?! However, coming away from this - I couldn't be more thrilled to have gotten as far as I did. I had an amazing time preparing for this character and I'll never forget the experience. One day, I will play that role ... just not right now. 

This is a clip of them performing on The View. Performance starts at 0:25 - I was auditioning for the guy that sings the solo at the end after they all dance.