EMBRACIN’ JASON
For many, Jason Tam first made a lasting impression with his unforgettable audition for Paul in the Broadway revival of A Chorus Line, as seen in the documentary Every Little Step. (If you haven’t seen it, I urge you to do so — it’s an example of a perfect audition.) But believe it or not, his journey to the stage began long before. Born in Honolulu in 1982, Jason’s lucky break came while playing Winthrop in a community theater production of The Music Man when his performance caught the eye of a touring production of Les Misérables heading to the islands, which led to his casting. Later, at 10 years old, Broadway needed a replacement for the same role and brought Jason to New York. Now, with nearly 40 years onstage, Jason is being featured in the current Off-Broadway production The Jonathan Larson Project (see Stage and Cinema‘s review). After a recent preview, Stage and Cinema’s Gregory Fletcher spoke with Jason to discuss his notable career.
GREGORY FLETCHER: I read in the Playbill that a Jonathan Larson song cycle first appeared at 54 Below in 2018 and made a recording a year later. Were you involved with either of those projects?
JASON TAM: No, not at all, but my friends were. I knew everybody in the cast. My dear friend George Salazar (with whom I did Be More Chill) was singing the songs that I’m singing in this current production. I stepped in for him once for an American Theatre Wing Gala to sing “The Truth is a Lie” when he wasn’t available. I loved the concert version and then the album, but now to get to do the Off-Broadway production is a dream come true.
Be More Chill. (Maria Baranova)
FLETCHER: Be More Chill is credited many times in several of the bios in the Playbill. Did your connections with that production help cement your involvement with The Jonathan Larson Project?
TAM: The longer you stay in this business, the more you keep pounding the pavement; ultimately, you’re going to end up working with the same people again and again, watching each other grow and supporting each other throughout the years. Though I do think one unifying aspect in this case is Joe Iconis [composer/lyricist of Be More Chill]. Early in my career, I started doing concerts and cabarets with Joe. Another collaborator was Lauren Marcus [also in Be More Chill] who eventually married Joe and now is costarring with me in The Jonathan Larson Project. Jennifer Ashley Tepper [Creative and Programming Director at 54 Below] was a lead producer of Be More Chill and is the conceiver of The Jonathan Larson Project. She’s the main reason why this is even happening in the first place. She went through the massive archive of Jonathan Larson material at the Library of Congress and put the song cycle together. So, being a part of this show does feel like fate—kind of cosmic.
Lauren Marcus, Andy Mientus, Jason Tam, Taylor Iman Jones,
Adam Chanler-Berat in The Jonathan Larson Project. (Joan Marcus)
FLETCHER: What had your experience with Jonathan’s work been prior to this project?
TAM: Singing in my shower and in the car. I was a huge fan. I’d seen many, many productions of Rent and tick, tick…boom! I grew up on Rent. Around the 7th or 8th grade, I could sing the entire album, front to back, every single lyric. It helped shaped the way I thought of musical theater. It was a bridge from Rodgers and Hammerstein, who initially got me interested in musicals. Not only did I realize what else it could become, but also, I could see myself in it—people who looked like me and had a wider spectrum of identity. I grew up in the Hawaiian Islands, and listening endlessly to Rent gave me a sense of community—of people who felt like home, people I wanted to belong to.
FLETCHER: Did you gravitate toward one character in particular?
TAM: I think I was more attracted to the way that they were all different from each other and yet coexisted together, lifting each other up. This played a huge role in my development as an artist and how I wanted to shape my life.
FLETCHER: How different of an experience is it performing in a song cycle versus doing a book musical?
TAM: It’s very different from doing a book musical. It requires a lot more specificity. A book musical is laid out with everything being much more obvious: the transition from one song to the next, and one scene to the next. With a song cycle, you must find creative ways of getting to the songs, interacting, and being in conversation with each other, building a narrative arc. It’s challenging but also rewarding because you become part of the team of collaborators, making those discoveries and choices.
Marry Me A Little. (Carol Rosegg)
FLETCHER: Is this your first song cycle to perform?
TAM: I did one other with Off-Broadway’s Keen Company: Marry Me a Little, which is all of Sondheim’s B Sides. A two-hander with Lauren Molina, it was a lot of singing, and we were unamplified. Which also made it really intimate and special. Thankfully with The Jonathan Larson Project, all the singing is split between five people and also we’re miked. We have great sound design and board op who does an excellent job.
FLETCHER: Did the order of songs change much in rehearsal?
TAM: It changed a lot because making sense of the order on paper, intellectually speaking, can be very different in context of a full 90-minute performance. There were three songs that got cut in the early rehearsals. All group songs. With Jonathan Larson, there’s so much great material available. It was tempting to shove everything into the show. But ultimately, we want to create a streamlined, effective journey without inhibiting the momentum, so it became obvious some of the songs had to go.
FLETCHER: You mentioned you were born in the Hawaiian Islands. Born in 1982, what an amazing journey to end up on Broadway only ten short years later.
TAM: There was a Canadian tour of Les Miz that came through Hawaii, and they wanted to hire a local Gavroche and Young Cosette. My friend Tiffany Shinn and I got cast. We rehearsed in Hamilton, Ontario and performed it in Hawaii for three months. Casting kept us on file because they go through kids so quickly. After you reach a certain height or if your voice changes, they boot you. A few months after the Hawaiian performances, I got a call asking if I wanted to do the role on Broadway for six months. And of course, I begged my parents who agreed, and I moved to NYC with my mom.
Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert (NBC)
FLETCHER: Moving from one island to another, but very different, I’m sure. The move must have been mind-blowing for a 10-year-old. What were some of your first impressions of being on Broadway at such an early age?
TAM: It was thrilling. Playing Gavroche, my entrance came from upstage, and I had to sneak on while another scene went on downstage. I hid behind the big, wooden barricade underneath a blanket. When the turntable spun around, I’d jump out from the blanket and start to sing, “How do you do? My name’s Gavroche.” I remember feeling terrified, but also totally thrilled. Exhilarated! Such a rush! I imagine it’s why people go skydiving or storm chasing. I couldn’t get enough and felt completely at home. After that first initial terror, it felt easy thereafter. Felt like a sense of belonging. I was so grateful for that experience because it helped give me a sense of confidence for being onstage.
FLETCHER: When you completed your six-month contract, did you stay or return back to Honolulu?
TAM: Went back home, though I did some acting here and there in community theater, school theater, dance and choral stuff. But not professionally until I started to look at colleges.
FLETCHER: After college and a couple summers of summer stock when you dove into musical theater, a really big break came your way. You auditioned for the 2006 revival of A Chorus Line whereupon a documentary was simultaneously being shot. One of the highlights is your audition for Paul — such a beautiful audition. So honest and moving. It looked like you were hired on the spot, am I right?
TAM: It felt that way, yes. I was so young and green, I didn’t fully realize what had happened. I left the audition feeling proud of my work, knowing I had put my best foot forward. But I also worried that in the script, Paul is supposed to be 27 years old. I was 23. I thought, maybe they were looking at me as an understudy, which would have been awesome and wonderful as well. Perhaps in a defensive way, I didn’t want to let myself get too hopeful. The experience felt like it was a magical preordained fit. As if the material was tailored for me. Looking back, I’m so grateful for that experience and getting to work with that kind of material. I felt so fortunate.
A Chorus Line. (Paul Kolnik)
FLETCHER: Were you coached prior to?
TAM: I had one prior work session with Jay Binder [casting director], and I got about halfway through the monologue when he gave me some notes and sent me on my way. What was documented was my first reading audition for the creative team. I had already danced and sung for them.
FLETCHER: And you were memorized!
TAM: Being off book is easy when you’re working with material that good. The monologue is literally Nicholas Dante’s real-life story — what he revealed to the group on that snowy night when they gathered around the tape recorder with Michael Bennett. It’s very close to verbatim of exactly what he said. Somehow, it just rolled off my tongue.
FLETCHER: Has memorizing become a part of your practice for auditions?
TAM: Yes, absolutely. I can’t really do my best work unless I’m off the page. Only then can I start to really play and be in the moment, inviting spontaneity into the room.
KPOP: Joomin Hwang, John Yee, Jinwoo Jung, Jiho Kang, Jason Tam (Ben Arons)
FLETCHER: Skipping to 2017, you originated the role of Epic in the Off-Broadway production of KPOP and won a Lortel award for your performance. I’m curious why didn’t you move to Broadway with the show?
TAM: It just wasn’t meant to be. But I remain a huge staunch cheerleader for that production, and I remain close friends with the creative team and my castmates who continued with it. Hard not to be a champion for the production because it was such a huge moment for Asian artists on Broadway. It was such a gift doing the Off-Broadway production and being surrounded by so many extraordinarily talented Asian people. And so fun pretending to be in a Korean boy band.
Lysistrata Jones. (Joan Marcus)
FLETCHER: Speaking of which, I’m sorry KPOP didn’t run longer on Broadway. I felt the same way about your 2011 Broadway production of Lysistrata Jones, when you originated the role of Xander that was nominated for a Fred Astaire Award for Outstanding Male Dancer. Any idea what happened?
TAM: I think if I had to pick a reason or two, it didn’t help that it opened in January — a really difficult time of year on Broadway that always slumps in sales across the board. Also, the title Lysistrata Jones didn’t seem to connect with a lot of people. As proud as I was of both the Off-Broadway and the Broadway production, I think the kind of lightning in a bottle that can happen Off-Broadway is sometimes hard to capture with a transfer. I’ve seen this happen many times where something Off-Broadway is so good — everyone loves it — with great momentum behind it, strong sales and reviews, but then all that success doesn’t somehow transfer. Sometimes, people think of Broadway as the be-all, end all of success, but there are a lot of gems Off-Broadway. Productions that have a lot of sizzle to them. Think of how wonderful Little Shop of Horrors is doing right now. There’s something about the intimate size of an Off-Broadway house that’s so special. When Lysistrata Jones performed at that weird Judson Gymnasium basement with its basketball court — it was so special, strange, quirky, and joyful. KPOP too at Ars Nova.
Anthony Rapp and Jason Tam in If/Then. (Joan Marcus)
FLETCHER: But no problem with its transfer to Broadway. Wasn’t it Tony nominated for Best Musical?
TAM: When Joe was nominated for a Tony, that was a huge moment for me. I was so excited for him.
FLETCHER: It must’ve been a blast performing in that show. Your costumes were so much fun.
TAM: They were insane. Bobby Tilley designed them. I played The Squip who starts out being the perfect, good helper/best friend/father figure/brother figure — all combined into one. Then slowly throughout the show as this AI gains more complexity and intelligence, he starts to turn to a dark place, and the costumes really told that story. I was wearing a part Matrix coat/part Kimono, which literally changed the way I carried myself: my walk and the way I held my shoulders and my chest. It was so much fun.
FLETCHER: Very different from the realism of your experience in 2014 with If/Then.
TAM: Yes, very different. Which was also a delight, but yeah, it was all street clothes. Hyper realistic, exactly.
Taylor Iman Jones, Jason Tam in The Jonathan Larson Project (Joan Marcus)
FLETCHER: You’ve really sustained an on-going career onstage for so many years — or rather, decades. And yet, when I saw you in The Jonathan Larson Project, you looked so young.
TAM: Ha! Thank you. One of the highlights of doing KPOP Off-Broadway was learning about Korean skin care from all my Asian friends. Admittedly, I do have a skin regimen that I strictly adhere to, and I’m trying to keep a youthful glow for as long as I can.
FLETCHER: It’s working. Maybe you should market it as a secondary career on the side. Not that you need it. You seem to be consistently working. Any tips on sustaining a career, year after year? Do you still have ups and downs?
TAM: Absolutely, so much of sustaining a career is not booking a job. Or not continuing with the job that you did book. You know—the workshop that moves on without you because they’re going in a different direction than previously cast. Or, the hundreds of self-tapes that pile up in your Dropbox. I think sustaining a career involves so many things. How to boil it down into something simple? You have to find a way to make it work best for you. Some of those ways for me include carving out a life outside of the theater that brings me equal joy. Theater isn’t my only source of identity and purpose. But having said that, another way that I recharge my battery is by seeing lots of theater. Whenever I’m feeling down or feeling sorry for myself, I go to see a show. And I learn something from the show because that’s what theater does best. It takes you outside of yourself and into somebody else’s story. This energizes me—energetic longevity.
FLETCHER: Any talk of The Jonathan Larson Project moving?
TAM: Aside from friends who come to see the show? No, but part of me hopes it remains at the Orpheum Theater for as long as possible. Like we were saying before, the Off-Broadway space is a magical space for this show. What might we lose if we transfer uptown? Staying put would be my dream for this specific production.
FLETCHER: I love the intimate space of the 299-seat Orpheum Theater, the previous home of the long running Stomp and the original Little Shop of Horrors. With the technical elements of the lighting, projections, accompanied by five great performances, it’s definitely a crowd pleaser. And I love how it pays great tribute to the talented and gifted Jonathan Larson.
TAM: And to his wide range of inspiration and aesthetics. He’s so much more than just Rent and tick, tick…boom! Also, I feel like one of the most touching aspects of this show, besides celebrating Jonathan, is that we’re celebrating any artist who perseveres doing the work. Actors, dancers, writers — all artists who are continuing to stay in the business, continuing to create, even though it’s so hard, that’s what fills me with hope and joy.
follow Jason Tam on Instagram @JasonWTam
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