Interview: Jonathan Cable of JERSEY BOYS at Robinson Performance Hall

Photo credit Matt Simpkins

BWW Interview: Jonathan Cable of Jersey Boys at Robinson Performance Hall

How do you get from small town Indiana to Jersey and then all around the country? Jonathan Cable who plays Nick Massi in Jersey Boys, was kind enough to take some time and talk about how he got started and his experiences touring with a show that has been so embraced by audiences around the country and the world.

What was the first musical you ever saw?

I suppose it would have been Phantom of the Opera in Chicago. Growing up in small town Indiana. We lived in a small farm town in the middle of nowhere. However, I had an aunt in Chicago that took me to see Phantom at the Chicago Lyric theater. So that was probably my first big experience of a big Broadway musical.

How old were you?

Somewhere between being 10 and 13, because it was before I was in high school.

How early did you start in theatre?

I guess in middle school. I had been doing community theater down in Wabash, Indiana. We actually played a theater last year in Wabash on a one nighter that was a theater that I grew up in doing shows. So that was very cool, kind of like coming home. I had a bunch of friends there and big, big family group there.

Growing up in Indiana where sports are important and particularly basketball how unusual was it to veer into theatre at a young age?

It was very unusual and I was not always supported. I think I played all the sports growing up. I was very athletic and even getting into high school there was a bit of conflict between basketball commitments and musical commitments. We were encouraged to pick between the tennis team and the band and I chose the tennis team because some of the big competitions were conflicting, schedule wise. My basketball coach got very frustrated with me that I would do the musical. In my senior year of high school, I was the lead in Brigadoon and my basketball coach felt like I wasn't focusing on basketball, the way that I should have been. I remember singing the national anthem at one of my basketball games where I was wearing my jersey and that was a strange thing to do. I probably got teased by my basketball friends for it but I loved basketball and I loved doing musicals. I didn't really care what anyone had to say about my love for musicals and the sort of path that I was trying to pursue and I just kept doing it all and it worked out.

Did you have a big theatre department at your high school?

No, it was pretty small. We did one musical a year, there was no Drama Department or anything like that. We didn't have classes in theatre. When I was there, it was one musical a year and it was run by the voice teacher, Lani Christiansen. I was in a town of about 6000 people and we were just lucky to have this teacher who was a Voice Performance major at Ball State. She had created this really wonderful environment for some fun experiences in musicals in our high school.

Was high school the first time you had gotten to do a musical?

I remember playing Daddy Warbucks in Annie Jr. when I was in eighth grade. I think in first or second grade, I have this memory of playing Mozart in some school pageants, some kind of educational theatrical endeavor. I played piano all my life. So my journey has definitely been from music, like piano to choirs to doing musicals until I got into junior high school. Well, also there were community theater productions in that Wabash area and I remember being in The Princess and the Pea when I was in junior high.

How early did it occur to you "I would rather be an actor than an athlete"? Doing both, was there a moment where you thought, "This is what I want to do?"

It was some time probably in the middle of my junior year of high school. In our previous venue earlier this week, we were in Ohio, which is close to where my parents live now and my parents were at the show and my dad was talking to me at dinner about, "I remember how you were going to grow up and just make a whole lot of money and now you're an actor." In my junior year, Ms. Christiansen, was teaching a lesson and I remember her asking me if I thought about going to school for theatre or music or vocal performance. I did not know that that was an option. So when she suggested that to me, I started looking into it and realized that I could do that, I wanted to do that. So I guess that was the moment that I knew it was something that I could practically pursue and I made the decision to audition for all these programs. I knew at that point, somehow that's the type of work that I wanted to do, whether I'd make money doing it or not.

How valuable was your college theatre experience in preparing you for the life that you're now living?

That's a tough question for me. I think that the time that I spent in college maturing as a person was as valuable as the performing arts education that I got. I would not have been prepared at 17, when I graduated high school, to move to New York and to begin studying theatre and music and dance there. I think I would have gotten lost. I needed the time in a theatre arts program to mature. Not just as a performer, but as a person. To gain confidence, to gain any number of things that prepared me to move to New York and begin pursuing it there. And then I also spent a summer, after my senior year of college, in an internship at Maine State Music Theater, which is one of the best regional theaters in the country. I did four shows there as a Performance Intern and had an amazing summer gaining some incredible experience with seasoned professionals. Then I moved to New York after that summer, feeling fairly prepared. It really took 10 years of being in New York and pursuing my craft to get to a place where I feel like I fit in.

Were you familiar with the songs from Jersey Boys before you auditioned?

I was, I remember actually senior year of college, I was on spring break with all of my theatre friends and we were in a bar singing karaoke. It was four of us singing "Walk Like A Man". That's the most intimate memory I have of Frankie Valli's music, but also hearing it in so many movies and on the radio. It's iconic and I guess my parents listened to oldies enough that I'm familiar with some of his more popular music. Some of the music in the show I really had no idea was Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons music, it's amazing.

What was the audition process like for this show?

I went to an open call for the show and about two weeks later I got an email inviting me to an invited audition. Then there was about a week and a half of callbacks where we come in and learned a couple of dances and then sang some harmony. Then I had to sing a solo song and at the end of it all, they put each of us on tape individually and took those tapes to the creatives to make decisions. So I was cast last year as a swing and we were on tour all of last year. Then this year, I was fortunate enough to be asked to play Nick Massi and it's just been a dream of a year so far. It's been great. The show is so much fun to do, the audience always have such a great time and that makes it more fulfilling for us on stage. It's just the music and the story is so fun to tell every night.

What has been the best part of touring?

We are playing some of the smaller venues in the country and so it's been more fun because we're playing to audiences who haven't seen the show before. Our audiences don't have a lot of Broadway shows come through and so they're much more excited. It's exciting to tour the country and see all the different places and all your friends and family members around the country. To experience different cultures, different foods, restaurants and music everywhere we go. The country is bustling, even in the smaller areas, with craft food and drink almost everywhere we go. And it's been fun to experience that.

What would be your dream role?

That's tough because there's several. Billy Bigalow in Carousel, Woody in Finian's Rainbow, Billy Flynn in Chicago and Adam in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I guess I tend to gravitate more towards the more classical music theatre in what I feel like I want to do. I love the sound of a big orchestra and the emotion and the music. I love those scores, just classic scores. They're beautiful. And I would love to get to sing that music.

What Broadway performer or performers would you want to work with, past or present?

I'd love to be in the room, listening to John Raitt and the same with Ron Raines and Patti LuPone. I would have loved to seen Robert Goulet. Gene Kelly would be incredible to observe. I would love to have watched him work in the room and to see his work ethic, because I know he was such a stickler for rehearsal and he was such a talented singer and dancer and actor and was so charming and charismatic. It would be so much fun to learn from some one like that. He made it look so easy on screen or on stage and you know there's so much technique and rehearsal behind that. I think we're in a place in the arts and in our country where we're buying the lie. We're expecting things to be given to us without the work, we've lost the value of hard work over a long period of time that gives you merits. There's a great value in building something over time. I've been lucky to have some mentors that keep my nose to the grindstone and keep my goals In Focus and the work that needs to go into those goals. I've been grateful to have those people in my life. There will be people that work harder than others and be more talented that won't make it. There will be people that will be really lucky and not work hard at all and they will be successful. And then, there's no justice in it. But if you love it, you keep doing it.

Jonathan Cable and the rest of Jersey Boys cast will be in Little Rock October 12-14th. For tickets contact in person at Celebrity Attractions, via phone at 866.870.2717 or locally at 501.244.8800 or online at jerseyboysinfo.com