RECAP: The Genies of ALADDIN Shared Their Audition Stories on STARS IN THE HOUSE

Stars in the House continued Thursday night (8pm) for Genies In A Bottle with Juwan Crawley, James Monroe Iglehart, Michael James Scott, Major Attaway, and Trevor Dion Nicholas.

The ALADDIN Genies talked about how they got the role.

James Monroe Iglehart began, "I was in the last round. I was only chosen because a friend of ours...John Eric Parker was talking to Casey Nicholaw, Casey Nicholaw said 'I'm looking for an African American man to play Genie and John Eric Parker...said 'have you spoken to James Igglehart...he's in MEMPHIS you should go check him out. Casey went and saw the show, next thing you know my agent got a call."

Michael James Scott said, "The Genie was never on my radar however Casey Nicholaw is a very good friend. We were doing THE BOOK OF MORMAN at the time. That conversation happened while we were doing one of the workshops of THE BOOK OF MORMON...I actually got involved because James, when they did the production in Seattle, they decided to do a reading of the show with all the changes they had done in Seattle. James couldn't come back in to do that so I got a phone call from my agents that Casey wanted me to come in and play the Genie for this reading."

Trevor Dion Nicholas shared, "Michael was getting ready to leave...my agent was like 'hey, there's an audition for Genie standby, we're going.' In that first year I had watched the Tony's performance and was like 'oh I think I can do that.' and so I cheated and I had a video of the Tony's performance and I learned as much of the tap from the Tony's that I could from a private tap teacher because I was like 'what I do not do is pretend tap dance like we all have done so many times on stage...' When the actual audition came up...I was getting ready to go down to Maltz Jupiter Theatre for THE WIZ and I went in for the audition and they were like...' we'll be in touch...' I go down to Jupiter and then my agent calls and says 'they want to have you back in for this' and I was like 'oh when?' and it was literally on our Opening Night and we had no covers. I was like 'there's no way I can do that, we have no covers, will they take a video?...' I do this video...send it over and then they're like 'great, we need you to come in on this day instead.' but still a day when I had a show. I was like 'I can't do that, the show's still running, I can't be there.' Then I got the agent phone call 'oh we're gonna have to in another direction...' So then the day I was supposed to be there I get a phone call from my agent who said 'they did all the auditions, they had your video, and after they had everyone come through, Thomas Schumacher asked is there anything else...they played my video audition and his response was well fly him up on his next dark day. I literally did my Sunday matinee, went straight to the airport, flew up to the city. That Monday morning I auditioned then was back on a plane flying back to Florida and before I got back on the plane I got the phone call from my agent saying I would be the new standby."

Major Attaway chimed in, "I was doing HAND ON A HARDBODY in Dallas Texas...Doug Wright came to see the production of the show...After the show I talked to Doug and he said 'hey, what do you want to do?' And I said 'I want to be the Genie in ALADDIN on Broadway...' Two months pass and I get an email from [Doug Wright] and he says 'hey man, I had lunch with my friend [Thomas Schumaucher] don't know if anything's gonna happens but I dropped your name...a month after that I get an email with an entire packet...they said 'hey man we heard some things about you, learn this. Bye...' I sent a tape and they said 'can you come in next week for final callbacks."

Juwan Crawley said, "It was my junior year of college when the Tony performance happened...immediately the head of my department at Hartford called me and said 'Juwan, there's a part that you must play...' He set me up to do different roles that would prepare me for what the show was...' I did a lot of stuff where I was the magical narrator type of the production. It was my senior year of college and they were auditioning for standbys doe the national tour and I auditioned three times and they told me no. They said 'your voice is too high...' Fast forward maybe six months into SPAMILTON, I left SPAMILTON to do a show in Philadelphia called FOUND and one of the ladies in FOUND is really good friends with Casey Hushing and I got called in for Damien in MEAN GIRLS...Casey Hushion was like 'you have to sing this for Casey Nicholaw and Tina Fey' so I hang it for them and Casey was like 'you should be a Genie and we need a Genie.' I was like 'I just wanna be on Broadway so whichever one you want me to do I'm fine with!' I got called for a final work session with Casey...at the end he was like 'do you need to change the key for the show?' That night I found out when I was getting into my Genie costume at SPAMILTON that I got it."

James sang "The Kite" and Juwan sang "Somewhere."

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Photo Credit: Jennifer Broski