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Class Notes: Zach Daniel Jones “Gypsy”
00:19:13
Listen: Lauren Class Schneider talks to Zach Daniel Jones, originating the role of Angie in the current revival of “Gypsy” at the Majestic Theater. “Class Notes” actively covers New York’s current theater season on, off, and off-offBroadway.
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- [00:00]
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- [01:04]
Lauren Klaus Schneider
Hi, I'm Lauren Klaus Schneider with Class Notes for Broadway Radio. I'm here with Zachary Daniel Jones originating the role of Angie in the current revival of Gypsy at the Majestic Theatre. Hello.
- [01:16]
Zachary Daniel Jones
Hello, Lauren. How's it going?
- [01:18]
Lauren Klaus Schneider
Great. It's great. It's going to be better when I get to start learning a little bit more about your work at Gypsy. Now Gypsy, of course, is the landmark musical that takes place during the vaudeville era, inspired by the early life of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee and her domineering mother Rose. Now, you were performing in that sure hit Wicked when you auditioned for Gypsy and were ultimately offered the role. So what made you decide the long run and take this new job?
- [01:47]
Zachary Daniel Jones
Oh, wow, that's a really wonderful question. You know, there's a handful of shows on Broadway that us in the industry sort of refer to as the government jobs of Broadway because, you know, they're not going anywhere. And in an industry and in a field that is so uncertain, those are the sure bets that, you know, you can rely on for employment and for income and to be able to build a life. So, yeah, that's something that was really difficult to leave, but something that really, really excited me about joining Gypsy was the opportunity to build my own track. You know, I get to build my own role in this show, in this historic piece that is being done in a new way. So there was, there was such a, an excitement around being a part of this.
- [02:44]
Lauren Klaus Schneider
And what was the Audition process, like for you?
- [02:47]
Zachary Daniel Jones
Yeah, I went in four times. My initial appointment was just a singing audition with the casting team and then from there had a couple rounds of callbacks. The first callback was with the dance team to learn two sections of choreography. The first section was what we call traveling in the show. And then the second section was the military sequence where the young performers transitioned to the older versions. And it was very intense. It was a high, fast paced, a lot of material. I'd say it was maybe almost two minutes of material. And they flowed directly one into the other. So it was one of the hardest dance auditions I've ever done. After we learned that and did it, we then sang. And so I sang for the music team and then got another callback to dance again, sing again, and read sides. So I went in, read some sides for the farm boys, and that was really nice because I felt a lot more comfortable and confident in the dance material at that point. So I felt a little freer to make character choices and really sort of embody the style. And then my final callback, which I've never experienced anything like this in my career, was a one on one work session with the music team, directing team, dance team, and casting. And so for about 30 minutes, we worked through the farm boy side of the vocal side, sang that, danced with Chloe and Amanda, Camille's two dance assistants, associates. Excuse me. And worked through the material, did it, and then read the sides with George. And he gave me some adjustments. And it was kind of funny because, you know, it's, it's. It's kind of an intimidating room just by the, the. The legends that I'm standing in front of. And he kind of helped ground me and bring me back to, to earth and take my breath and take my time to, to get through it and find some adjustments and find who these boys are. So, yeah, so that was a quick sort of process. And then I found out about a week later that I was offered the role.
- [05:08]
Lauren Klaus Schneider
Oh, boy. Well, congratulations to you on that. And as you refer to George in the room, it's of course George C. Wolfe, who's the director, breathing new life into this production of Gypsy. What's it like to be in the rehearsal room with him?
- [05:23]
Zachary Daniel Jones
It is truly one of the most free, vulnerable, daring rooms I've ever been in. I felt so empowered to make decisions and to contribute. We spent about the first week and a half of rehearsals proper sitting around a table, reading through the script, dissecting the language, talking about these people and their wants and their needs. Our very first day of rehearsal, we open our scripts and George looks and it says, gypsy, a musical fable. And he says that a musical fable isn't quite the description of the journey we're about to embark on. He thinks it's more of an American fable because it is a story of people who want more for themselves and are living with not enough. And that just to start from that place and branch out was such permission to. To really invest in these people. You know, you could say one word, you could have one moment on stage, and yet you are a person in this world with a very specific want, a very specific need. And so what does it take for you to find that and fight for it? You know, sometimes in opposition with, you know, Mama Rose, played by Audra McDonald, who can be a freight train and bulldoze through your domain and sort of usurp your power and tell you, I'm going to take you where you want to go. So I would say, yeah, from the get go, it was just such a creative, open, welcoming space, and it was very free in play. He's such a playful guy. He was oftentimes just in his socks, laying on the floor, you know, asking, what do you think? What do you think? Okay. You know, he was very open to everyone's ideas and what everyone thinks and what everyone has to say. And I think that is such a wonderful quality as a director because then you have the autonomy to help craft and shape the story you want to tell.
- [07:40]
Lauren Klaus Schneider
Well, and the production is choreographed by Camille Brown, a score that we all know so well, we're so familiar with. And here we have new movement placed upon it. And what was the process like as the dance numbers were being created?
- [07:59]
Zachary Daniel Jones
Yeah. So once the casting had started coming together and they had enough bodies to get in a room, they asked, I think eight of us in the ensemble if we were free and interested in doing a pre production choreography lab. And we all said yes. So the two weeks before we started rehearsals, we began rehearsals on September 30th, but starting September 16th, we did two weeks of pre pro, where, like you said, you know, Gypsy is well renowned and well known, and we have the script, we, we have the libretto, we have the music and the lyrics, but with new choreography set, we don't have the language to communicate with our bodies yet. So what is that vocabulary? What are our touchstones and what is it we want to say through movement? And so working with Camille in the room for those first two weeks was very much about what are we saying and how can we Say it. And it was so special, too, because there's so many styles of dance in this show. And traditionally, the ensemble, you have your tiny little moments. The toread orables, they're at the beginning of Act 2. The Newsboys are only at the beginning of the show. The farm boys, we sort of take up a good chunk of the mid to late act one, but we're now being utilized in other sequences that we aren't normally, which is very, very exciting and fulfilling as. As. As a dancer and as an ensemble performer. So that, again, much like George in the. In the rehearsal room, Camille in the choreography lab, it was such a free space. There was one day toward the end where she said, if we had eight different dancers in this room, it would be a completely different show. So she very much was. Relied on us just as much as we relied on her for vision. I found myself constantly coming up with these mantras that I hadn't intended to bring into the space or meant to sort of establish as going into this rehearsal. But the. One of the early ones that I found was I'm a vessel for vision, and I can do hard things when I'm asked to do hard things. So that was. That was quite apparent in the room that I was able to participate and to be a part of that world building, which is now, you know, played eight times a week at the Majestic.
- [10:35]
Lauren Klaus Schneider
Sure, sure. What an experience, Zach. And I'm. I'm mulling over the concept of I'm a vessel for vision. That's really quite powerful. So the revival stars Audra McDonald and Annie Burstein, two extraordinary and very different types of actors. What do you learn from each of them?
- [10:58]
Zachary Daniel Jones
Oh, my gosh. I've learned so much, and I learned so much daily. You know, when I met Audra on day one of rehearsals, she is one of those people that is just so open and available. You feel as if you've known her your entire life. She's so generous of spirits, and her craft is just a marvel to watch being built in real time. In person, she is a masterclass in emotional stamina. And the way that she speaks about the work so openly and freely is such a comfort, especially as a young artist, to know that, okay, yes, it's not about being picture perfect. It's not about results. The process is ongoing, and investing in the process is what makes the product so entertaining and so human. So just seeing that. I love being backstage with her. She is opposite Dani in this way where she's 100% rose, 100% of the time. Even when she's off stage, she's still in it. And not in like a method kind of way, but in a way where it's just easier for her to stay in Rose than it would be to come out of it. But there's so much play to it. I love when we get to the Farm boy Broadway sequence and we're auditioning for Mr. Grandsiger at his Palace Theater and she'll be back there and she'll be cracking jokes with us. You know, if there's something that went wrong with the hats, she's like, you boys stop dropping those hats. Or there was one day that Tony broke his cane and it became two spears. And when we got off stage, she's like, I told you boys to stop playing with those sticks. So there's such a sense of play to her that is really, really fun to be around, especially when she's investing her entire soul and being into what she's doing on stage. And then Danny, you know, Danny is just as playful in the sense that he is constantly joking around with us. And so when we're on stage and he's either yelling at us, because that's what Herbie does to sort of protect his family as he's grown, to be a part of it. The second to get off stage, it's hugs and smiles and jokes and laughs and yeah, it's wonderful to watch two masters of their craft enter the work in different ways and yet yield such impressive performances.
- [13:30]
Lauren Klaus Schneider
How great for you. Last question. You tell a story about a Broadway audition that you almost didn't do.
- [13:39]
Zachary Daniel Jones
Aha. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So I had just moved to New York City. I graduated from the Boston Conservatory in 2016. And to go from an environment where you're immersed in training and creating 24, seven, you know, taking almost 14 classes a week, one, two, three times a week, rehearsing, doing shows, it's pretty time consuming and all. All encompassing that, that experience and that schedule to come here to this city where, you know, real life hits real hard. And all of a sudden I'm faced with bills and student debts and. And rent and how am I going to. To stay afloat in. In terms of providing my basic cost of living and. And my means to be here. I got two jobs. I worked at a fitness studio as a club coordinator, and then I also worked at a restaurant as a host, in a server. So I hadn't auditioned for a show in almost five weeks because I hadn't had a day off from either of those jobs in that time. And it was coming up on the Cats, Broadway revival, ecc Equity course call happen every six months, even if they're not looking for replacements. And it lined up with my day off, I decided, I'm going to go to this. I come down to the Pearl. No, it was at Ripley Greer. I come down to Ripley Greer. I go to that staples on 35th and 8th. I had taken the subway. I get up there to print off a headshot and resume. I'm waiting in line for the printing center and the line's not moving. A couple minutes go by and the line's not moving. And then all of a sudden it's been about 15, 20 minutes and I have not moved at all. This audition is moments starting. And in a moment of frustration, I decided to just storm out of the staples and I stomped my way down the subway steps. And I'm about to go through the turnstile and I have a moment where I sort of pause and reflect that at this point, living in New York, I was sometimes walking over 100 blocks from where I lived in Harlem to midtown for auditions just to save money on subway fare. So I took a second and I said, you know what? If they want my picture, they'll ask for my picture. I go back up the stairs, I walk up to Ripley Greer. And the thing about this story is, at the time, I didn't know that they had computers there. And I could have just printed off a headshot and resume. I have since learned that. So I went there, I printed off a black and white headshot and resumes, cut it, stapled it together, went in, we danced the Copeland section of the Jellicoe Ball. In the second we finished, I went into the bathroom and I just, boom, released and cried because I was just so happy to be dancing and doing what I loved for the first time. And what at that moment in my life felt like an eternity, you know. And then we fast forward to a callback a few days later. I was being called in for Mungo Jerry. We learn a little bit more material. And then I had what I consider my most New York day of my entire life. I wake up at 3:30 in the morning. I go open my fitness studio job and I work that shift from like 5:30 to noon. And then I go to a work session where I learned Mungo Jerry and Rumble teaser the the song and the choreography. Then I went to my restaurant shop, opened at 4:30 and worked till midnight. And I was like, this is living in the city. This is doing the thing you know, and then I had my final callback the next day. Showed up, did the Jellicle Ball, did Rum Tum Tugger. Then they started to work some specialties with the Victorias and the Mistoffeles, and they ended with the Mongos and the Rumps. We were in five couples. They had five couples go. They asked two of the couples back in. I'm gonna shout out their names. Matt Meggs and Haley Fish were the other Mongo Rumps. And I go in, I dance with Adina. And then they asked me to go back in and sing. And that was that. And I thanked them for. For their time. I also let them know and they had no contacts for this, but I just told them that this week has been so magical and so wonderful and. And life changing in ways that I can't explain. And so I was just really, really grateful for the opportunity to be in the room and to be doing it, you know. And then three weeks later, I get a call while I'm sitting on a bus playing Pokemon Go, looking out of the window, listening to dear Evan Hansen waving through a window that I was going to be making my Broadway debut as Manga Jerry and Cats. The two quick name shout outs that I'm going to give you is Matt Megs is who I ended up replacing in Wicked, and Haley Fish ended up being my Rumple teaser four months, five months later. So that's kind of fun to see the audition room and the world of how we are all so interconnected. But the reason I like to tell that story, and I'm assuming the reason you wanted to ask that question about this story, is in that moment when I almost went back home and I almost didn't go to the audition, the initial audition, to me, it wasn't about booking the job. You know, in that moment, I almost denied myself the opportunity to do what I love. I had a chance to be in a room and to dance and let go of everything outside of that room. And I almost, almost squandered that opportunity. And so from that moment forward, it wasn't necessarily about, you know, the jobs I could potentially get or the career I could possibly build if I had an opportunity to sing or dance or perform, I was going to say yes and I was going to take it.
- [19:27]
Lauren Klaus Schneider
Well, and thank goodness you did. And I think it's a lesson for all of us, Zach, that when we think, oh, just don't even try. Well, yeah, say yes and, and give it a shot. And, well, thank goodness for the cost of that subway token being what kept you downtown to go into that audition.
- [19:50]
Zachary Daniel Jones
Yeah, absolutely.
- [19:53]
Lauren Klaus Schneider
This has been terrific. I'm so grateful for your time and your stories.
- [19:58]
Zachary Daniel Jones
Thank you. I mean, I've had a blast. It's always so wonderful talking to you.
- [20:02]
Lauren Klaus Schneider
I'm Lauren Klass Schneider with Zachary Daniel Jones originating the role of Angie in the current revival of the Gypsy at the Majestic Theater. Thank you.
- [20:15]
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