Kyle Selig Has Hopped a Train Back to Broadway

Kyle Selig has joined the circus. Or rather, he has joined a kind of circus. The Broadway veteran (Mean Girls, The Book of Mormon) just stepped into Jacob Jankowski's shoes in Water for Elephants, which is currently enjoying its seventh month on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre.

Kyle just checked in with BroadwayWorld to chat about entering the big top, the excitement and challenges of being the first replacement in a Broadway show, his longtime connection with PigPen Theatre Co. and so much more!

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Welcome back to Broadway! How does it feel?

It feels really good. You know, it's been a couple years since I've had this eight-show-a-week thing, which comes with its own mental fortitude. I'm definitely balancing it by doing pretty much nothing else other than the show. It's being shot out of a cannon. 

Did you see this show before you got the job? 

I was not living in New York when it opened and I actually didn't see it until the night before I auditioned! I figured I'd go cram for the test. [Laughs] Grant [Gustin] made it look so easy... and that was really disarming. I was like, 'Oh, okay! I could do this!" And by the way, spoiler... it is so hard! It was just him being talented and casual and cool that made it look so easy. 

Then leaving after watching it the first time, I was very, very excited to see the show all over- the circus tricks and the songs and just seeing the whole show put together and what PigPen [Theatre Co.] had written. That's when I actually got very, very excited and really hopeful that I would get the job. 

I think it both looks and sounds different from anything else on Broadway right now...

I would agree. And I think that essentially stems from PigPen. I'm a long time PigPen Theatre Company fan. I went to school with them at Carnegie Mellon. They were seniors when I was a freshman. It's this wild full circle life event that's playing out in real time.

I've been super-fanning for years and years watching them in all their shows and buying their albums and listening and streaming. So I'm very familiar with what they offer to a theatrical experience. It's pure unadulterated PigPen up there on stage now with this fun expansion pack Broadway flavor to it that I never heard them do!

So, let's talk about Jacob. I'd imagine he's a really fun character to play because he really like goes on a journey in this show...

Something I realized early on is how unique of a protagonist (especially for a musical) he is. You really don't know what is going on with him until like 45 minutes into the show. That's very rare! The 'I Want' song that we all know and love from musical theater is very... not vague, but it doesn't give anything away. That's very unusual. Usually right from the first moments you meet a character, you know what they're after, you know what they're going through. I really enjoy playing with that every night in this first week- just being given the permission to be mysterious for a while.

What was like your rehearsal process like?

Short answer: fast and furious. [Our director] Jessica Stone was in the room with me most every day, which I felt very fortunate for. Also, very impressive on her end because she was simultaneously mounting the tour of Kimberly Akimbo. She was back and forth to work with me then going off there to see a run-through, and then running back to catch the show with me. She's superhuman. I don't know how she was doing it. She's also helping her son with algebra tests!

And then the rest of the team there, dance captain Brandon Block, associate director Ryan Emmons, Liz Doran, music director. Essentially, for about two and a half weeks there, I just lived at the theater. I'd rehearse all day and then watch the show at night, just because it's a huge undertaking and you literally don't leave the stage. I just let it become my whole life for about two weeks. 

What kind of like freedom did she give you in terms of your interpretation of the character?

A ton. But for them, this is the first sort of major principal replacement they've had for the show and it's very rare for that to be happening six months in. So in a very maybe unexpected way, it was sort of a test case to see if the bones were there, right? Is it just the people that are making this stand up or is it that the show structurally it sound and can withstand people's new takes on it? It's all there on the page. 

Did you have any conversations with Grant before he left?

About tons of things. The fun thing to know about Grant doing the show is how many fist bumps there are backstage! He was very adamant that I honor those nightly. He's just such a generous kind guy anyway, so it was just I made a joke to him I was like 'It's a shame that we both can't do the show together!' I offered him I offered him the matinees. [Laughs]

Do you have a favorite moment in the show?

The first 15 minutes or so of the show are pretty wild for me. It's kind of nonstop. And then I get to sit down and watch Izzy McCalla sing "Easy" to an aerialist and a horse puppet. It's such a wonderful song and she does it so grounded and it's heart-breaking. It's a huge pleasure to sit there and take a little break and just listen to somebody like destroy this song night after night. 

It seems like this cast is close...

There's definitely this element to the show that isn't necessarily unique, but I think it's so important to this one. The show is very dangerous... circus-wise, people's bodies and safety is being put on the line. So there is this huge amount of trust that has to happen every night. I think that has just permeated into the feelings of everyone for each other in the building. There's definitely the sentiment that if somebody falls, somebody's gonna be there to catch them. 

It's also top down. It's Jessica Stone, PigPen, Rick Elice. It's Paul Nolan, who's just there to play every single night. The man has never done the same show twice, and it's so fun to watch. 

Why do you think people need to see this show?

I think the show is really about... who are you when everything has been taken from you? Just speaking from my own personal experience, COVID and everything going on in America, in the world, it's been a rough couple years and I think it's really refreshing to see a group of characters who rely on their own moral standing to make their way through the world. It's a nice reminder that even if everything is taken from you, there's still life worth living and you can pull yourself up out of that. 

There's something for everyone!

It's this very, very interesting patchwork of circus and entertainment and romance and horror in some parts. And it's a little bit of everything. I really strikes a chord.