Interview: Jill Van Velzer of GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY at Bass Concert Hall

I am delighted to have had a chance to interview Jill Van Velzer who plays the role of Mrs. Burke in GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY. An accomplished actress, Velzer has also toured with productions of Phantom of the Opera and King & I, in addition to acting in numerous regional productions. GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY, part of the Broadway in Austin series, is being performed at Bass Concert Hall from April 23-28. She has kindly spent some time answering a few questions for Broadway World readers.

BWW: How did you get started in acting? Who or what influenced your decision to begin?

There were two big influencing factors: family and geography. My parents met as music majors in college, and I grew up playing the piano like Mom and singing like Dad. My mom sat me down in front of every movie musical ever put on celluloid by the time I was 10 years old. When the rest of my friends were reading the latest Babysitters Club book, I was poring over Broadway and Hollywood anthologies. (This did not do wonders for my fifth grade social life, but I digress.) Then, as I was heading into middle school, my Air Force pilot dad was stationed in England, and so over the pond we went, and lived there for three years. My parents would take us into London every few months, and we would always, always see a West End musical. I fell hopelessly in love with live theatre on the West End. After we moved back to the States, I started auditioning for local theatre productions in high school, and midway through college, I realized that if I didn’t at least attempt an acting career, I would set myself up for a long lifetime of “what if?” I got my first agent about a year later—she signed me after she saw me play The Witch in INTO THE WOODS during my senior year—and I had my first professional job lined up as soon as I graduated. 

BWW: What do you enjoy most about acting?

I adore rehearsals. It’s a group of really smart, talented people, all getting to know each other, making each other laugh, putting the script under a microscope, stretching all their creative muscles, figuring out how to piece their unique gifts into the perfect puzzle. Those times can be so special, I almost feel guilty getting paid for it. (Almost.) But performances are also special! By the time you get into performance mode, it’s a little like riding a roller coaster. The work is done; you’re safely locked into the car, riding on a predictable track, so your main job is to let go of your fear and just…free fall! When it’s working well, it’s absolutely exhilarating, and when it’s really working well, the audience feels exhilarated too.  

BWW: Do you have a certain approach you like to use in learning new roles?

I memorize my lines as quickly as possible so that I don’t have to worry about the words. It’s easier to play with different ideas in rehearsal once the words come freely. And then, of course, I do as much research as I can about the time period, the cultural background of the character, fashion, food, everything—what news stories would she be reading, how would her parents have expected her to behave, what dresses would she have worn at different points in her life? (You're gonna move differently if you spent your early life wearing a corset!) 

BWW: What are some of the roles you’ve performed prior to GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY? 

I’ve played everything from a punk rock queen to a deaf, old woman in a wheelchair. I toured as “Anna” in THE KING AND I, and I’ve also pole-danced my way through THE GREAT AMERICAN TRAILER PARK MUSICAL. I’ve done a lot of musicals from Broadway’s Golden Age, and a lot of plays featuring proper British ladies in beautiful dresses. Lots of Rodgers and Hammerstein, lots of Noël Coward, lots of Jane Austen plots.  

BWW: Can you give us some background, how did you get to be in a Broadway Tour?

My agent sent me the audition notice for GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY at 8pm on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend last year. My dad had just arrived for a visit, and he and my husband ended up taking our kids to the playground every day so I could learn and tape the audition sides. There were 30+ pages of material, and it was due in 5 days, which was…daunting. With that much material, the taping and editing alone took two full work days. But I got it done (thanks to all those kid-free hours!), and I sent the video links off into the ether and tried to forget about it. I was asked to do an in-person callback about two weeks later, and a final in-person callback and movement call a day or so after that. There was an agonizing week of waiting before I got the call that I had booked the gig. 

BWW: What about GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY compelled you to audition? 

Aside from the fact that a national tour is steady income for a year, the biggest attraction here was the opportunity to work with Conor McPherson on one of his scripts. I’ve been a massive admirer of his ever since I saw THE SEAFARER on Broadway years ago. That man is the real deal; he is such an insightful, funny, practical-minded theatre maker. He understands human behavior better than almost any other author you can name, and is genuinely interested in what his actors are bringing to the process. There’s a reason theatre scholars consistently describe him as one of the great English-language playwrights of our time. I think the world of him, I really do.

BWW: What is it about this show that speaks to you? 

There’s grace in Conor’s writing, in the Biblical sense of the word. He has such compassion for his characters, without making any excuses for their bad choices. You're watching this group of disconnected people trying to move forward through hardships not entirely of their own making. And they each start to realize that somehow, the key to survival is relying on each other. But they don’t know how to do that, and there’s the struggle. That’s where Bob Dylan’s music comes in—the songs don’t directly comment on the action or advance the plot, but instead serve as a sort of soundtrack to all the thoughts and feelings these characters are trying, imperfectly, to process. It’s a moving, heartfelt, incredibly perceptive piece, but it doesn’t force any single viewpoint on the audience. It just asks you to sit alongside these characters, in all their humanity. And it’s funny, too! These people, like any of us, use humor to get themselves through the day. 

BWW: This is a very specific kind of musical using the music of an influential singer/songwriter spanning many decades. How do you align with the music of Bob Dylan in this show? Does this music cross over into understanding aspects of your life?

I was not particularly knowledgeable about Dylan's music before starting work on this show. I don't think you need to be a Bob Dylan fan to appreciate the way his music shines in this piece. The lyrics really are poetry, with all the universality and mystery that comes along with that label. They're resonating on a level that's made to be felt, not just funnelled through your intellect. (There's a life lesson in there somewhere!) His music, with all that mystery, truly is the beautiful heart of these characters. There's a reason the guy has a Nobel Prize.

BWW: What is your favorite song from GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY? Why?

I just love what our orchestrator Simon Hale did with “Tight Connection To My Heart.” If you listen to Dylan’s original recording of the song, on his Empire Burlesque album, it’s got ‘80s production values and this kicky beat to it. But in our show, it’s this glorious, aching ballad, which gives the lyrics a chance to land in a gorgeous, new way. It’s such a good example of why Simon won a Tony Award for his work on this piece. 

BWW: What message do you hope audiences take away from GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY?

Being a human is hard, confusing work--no surprises there. None of us actually know what's going on! Ever! We're just doing the best we can with the information we have. But mustering the courage to walk alongside someone else in their fear and imperfection, laughing with them and forgiving them (and sometimes singing and dancing with them!)— surely that’s why we’ve all been put here? 

BWW: Is there a moment in the show that you believe speaks to our current cultural context?

This show is set in 1934, just after the worst peak of the Great Depression, so the characters are living through a time that’s very akin to what we all endured during the worst of Covid-19. I know that when I saw this show on Broadway in November 2021, I identified very closely with some of the characters--with that queasy feeling, like you’re on unsteady ground, emotionally or financially or theologically or politically, because your world has been totally upended by outside events. Even after attaining a little distance from that time, I think the disconnectedness we see in some of the characters is a real lesson for us; acting in fear and defensiveness is not the way forward. We have to try to let courage and hope and humor carry the day. We have to try to connect with each other.

BWW: Is there anything that I haven’t asked that you would like to tell us about?

Two things:

I had to learn how to play the drums for this show! The producers gave me, my stage husband (David Benoit, who plays “Mr. Burke”), and our understudies private drum lessons for a month before the start of rehearsals. I had literally never picked up drumsticks before! It was terrifying! I’m looking forward to taking more lessons once the tour closes. 

And also: I am traveling the tour with my entire family in tow! My husband, Timothy Splain, joined as the show’s  Music Director back in January. We are temporarily homeschooling our 7 year old son and 3 year old daughter so that they can travel with us, and my dad volunteered to come along as babysitter and teller of corny Grandpa jokes! It’s very busy, and very tiring, and there’s a lot of driving, but the kids are getting to see the country, and Tim and I get to do all the things we love best, together. It’s such a wonderful adventure. You can sleep when you're dead, right?

BWW: What show will we see you in next?

Only time will tell. The theatre world is still finding its new normal, post-2020, and the job market is still a little squishy, even by theatre standards. This is my first acting job since the pandemic started. It felt like a long, long time coming, and I’ve been deeply grateful for every second of it. I daresay it was worth the wait.

BWW: Thank you taking the time to answer our questions, Ms. Van Velzer. We are looking forward to seeing you perform!

GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY

Written by Conor McPherson, Music & Lyrics by Bob Dylan 

Bass Concert Hall, 2350 Robert Dedman Austin,

April 23-25 7:30 pm; April 26 8:00 pm; April 27 2:00 & 8:00 pm; April 28 1:00 & 6:30 pm

Running Time: 2 hours 30 minutes with one intermission

Tickets: $30-135

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