Interview: Ben Chavez of FROZEN at Theatre Under The Stars

Ben Chavez is a singer, actor, and dancer who currently lives here in Houston. He recently was in the THEATRE UNDER THE STARS production of NEWSIES. He's done a national Broadway tour with Disney’s ALADDIN. He's done New York performances on Broadway. He's done the Radio City Christmas spectacular. He's appeared in tons of regional theaters and venues like the Sacramento Music Circus; Ben is also a recording artist and a proud NYU TISCH School of the Arts graduate! You can catch Ben playing piano and singing at Michael's Outpost, and he is just a delightful performer. His music is also available to stream on all major music platforms. 

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Brett Cullum: So first up, you're in FROZEN, which is what Theater Under The Stars is doing for the holidays this year. I am very excited about it! What are you doing? 

Ben Chavez: There's a lot going on—a lot of information. The music, of course, is spectacular and very intricate, and I'm in the ensemble and also understudying Kristoff. So I get to work double duty here!

Brett Cullum: As an understudy. Do you have dates that you go on?

Ben Chavez: No. There are no guaranteed dates. We're expected to be out there ready at any moment should anything happen. Of course, we hope nothing happens, but that's part of the gig just being ready.

Brett Cullum: That has to be a nail-biter because you must learn all this. The ensemble work AND the romantic lead to a Disney Princess! 

Ben Chavez: Yeah, it is. The ensemble has quite a bit to do in this show. Especially vocally. We have a lot of support that we give to the show. And so my brain is cut in half in our rehearsals. I'm doing my ensemble duties, and whenever Kristoff is walking on, I have my little notepad on the side, marking to make sure I have all of his stuff right.

Brett Cullum: That's crazy. It's like doing double parts simultaneously. I can't imagine, but that's great. And this is Dan's vision (the artistic director of TUTS!). Dan Knechtges is the director of this show, right?

Ben Chavez: Yeah, this is interesting. TUTS has special access to this show, and Dan Knechtges has done a lot of work and a lot of research trying to make this our original Theatre Under the Stars take on this. And so he has tapped into some of his Swedish heritage, done lots of research on art and folklore and all that kind of stuff, and brought in some really great photos and inspiration for us to look at. That's based on some of his own family heritage. So this production will have a lot of the familiar songs that people are used to, but we'll have a new visual take that I'm really excited to see myself, and audiences will really be dazzled by it.

Brett Cullum: I am not as familiar with FROZEN as I am with some of the other Disney properties. Is there a basic fairy tale that this was based on? Are you guys taking it back to the roots of some Hans Christian Anderson tale?  

Ben Chavez: That's a great question. I'm not even certain what the original movie is based on. This isn't a fairy tale that I'd ever heard before. But it's really no pun intended. It's chilling. Elsa, the older sister, you know she can't come into physical contact with anyone for fear of freezing them over, and she ends up freezing over the whole kingdom and isolates herself. And she's just kind of having this inner struggle of I wanna be a part of society, but I can't. I can't hurt those I love, especially her sister Anna, so I don't know where the story comes from, but it's awesome.

Brett Cullum: I just looked at the Internet! FROZEN was based on a fairy tale from 1844 called THE SNOW QUEEN. It was a Hans Christian Anderson story, but the movie writers really worked it over to make the film’s story! It's certainly a favorite from the modern era, and I doubt most kids would even know THE SNOW QUEEN. But certainly, a lot of people and kids are excited about this show. This is a family show, obviously.

Ben Chavez: For sure, it's great for families. It's also a great date night show, too.

Brett Cullum: Okay, so tell me a little bit about you, Ben. How did you get into music and theater?

Ben Chavez: This journey for me goes back to when I was three years old. My first connection with performing and the arts was through the piano and my parents noticed that I had an affinity, a connection towards music. They noticed that I had a musical ear because I would, you know, really listen to songs. We would listen to a lot of Sinatra, a ton of Billy Joel, and some Latin music as well. I was able to retain those melodies in my brain and just figure them out on my own on the piano. And so my parents signed me up for lessons. From being an instrumentalist, I fell in love with singing, acting, and then dancing, and I spent my after-school hours doing all of the training and artistic things. I have never played a sport in my entire life. I'm thankful that my parents noticed that I was not good at sports, so I was never on any kind of team, but I was always doing, you know, all of the performing elements, and I studied at NYU-Tisch. I did musical theater at their new studio on Broadway, which was an amazing program. I was part of the second graduating class. Once I graduated college in 2015, I kind of just started working in regional theaters. As you mentioned, I did MARY HARRY at the York Theater. That was a fun little new piece. That took me to touring with ALADDIN for two years, one year before the pandemic and one year post-pandemic. 

After I got off the road [with ALADDIN], I decided I wanted to plant some roots and work a little more locally, so I've had the pleasure of doing that. This is my now second show at TUTS, and, as you mentioned, I play at Michael's Outpost, which is an awesome queer-friendly bar. It's really a queer haven for so many people in Houston, and they have awesome drag performances, awesome variety shows, and of course, a piano bar, which I get to do every other Friday.

Brett Cullum: Well, it's amazing that Michael’s Outpost has embraced this sense of Broadway! They even have a show literally called THE BROAD’S WAY. And it's these musical theater people that are so talented! It just makes me question what they're doing playing at a local dive bar next to a Vietnamese restaurant and a tattoo parlor! 

Ben Chavez: I totally feel you there. Houston is, in my opinion, such an underrated city when it comes to the arts. People think you have to be in New York to be an artist, or you have to go to LA to be a film person, or you know, Chicago has a really booming theater district. But Houston is one of those cities that you don't think you should move to, and I am not from Houston. I grew up in Jersey. I was a New York City guy, and when I was on tour with ALADDIN, I went to Montrose when we played at the HOBBY CENTER, and that's actually how I ended up here because I met my partner in Montrose, and we just kind of hit it off. After that tour, I decided to move to Houston. But you know, speaking of the Broad’s Way show, we have such amazing performers in this town, and you know, TUTS is such a prime example of the kind of art power that we have in this city. It's just amazing.

Brett Cullum: How did you hook up with TUTS? Did you audition? Did they ask you? How did you initiate this relationship?

Ben Chavez: Yeah. Since I got off the road, I have been really wanting to build as many connections with local theaters as possible. So, NEWSIES came along. I had auditioned for a couple of other projects that were just not on the cards for me at the time, but NEWSIES was kind of an ambitious audition for me because, while I have spent a good deal of my life dancing, I never really considered it my forte. NEWSIES has really made me get my butt in shape, and I had to regain some flexibility and muscle strength. And so, I'm very grateful that the director, Ryan Scarlata, and the choreographer in particular, William Carlos Angulo, saw something in me. And they cast me in that show, and since then, I've had a newly reignited appreciation and love for dance. So I'm really grateful to that show. And since then, of course, I auditioned for FROZEN, and here I am. I want to continue to perform in this amazing space.

Brett Cullum: Ben Chavez. I am very impressed with you because I've heard you play piano. I've heard you sing! Obviously, in NEWSIES, we got to see you dance. It's like, what can't you do? You're now a triple threat, officially! 

Ben Chavez: I like wearing different hats. I'm somebody who gets bored of doing the same thing for too long. So I love to dabble in a little singing, dancing, a little piano, some piano bar music directing, you know, songwriting. I like to keep myself occupied and do everything.

Brett Cullum: Do you find that Houston keeps you busy?  

Ben Chavez:  100%. Look, I love New York, of course, but I have never been so creatively active and employed than when I moved to Houston. Houston keeps me so busy. There's there's so much work available for entertainers of all sorts. Of course, there's theater. We have THEATRE UNDER THE STARS, and we have a number of other professional theaters. And people down here love supporting the arts financially, too. I have been able to connect with a lot of private entertainment opportunities. Some galas and fundraising events! I'm often asked to do entertainment for that. So it's definitely a smaller pool down here, which is great for us because we have the opportunity to do a whole lot of performing.

Brett Cullum: Well, it's counterintuitive. A lot of people don't think of Houston, and all we have that is a great outlet for artists. So I am so thankful to hear that from you because I expected almost a different answer.

Ben Chavez: No, there's so much going on. And as I mentioned, our donors and supporters in town are just really generous in their support for the arts. So because of all those folks' generous support, we have so many avenues to go down and keep ourselves active and employed.

Brett Cullum: Let me ask you this because you are a triple threat now. You're doing a lot of theater and a lot of music and different things like that. What's your favorite thing to do? If you had to pick a genre or a medium, where would you go?

Ben Chavez: I'm a huge Elton John fan, and after spending so many years in the arts, I love songwriting. That's hard to say because I love theater so much, too. But I love that Elton John has, of course, released so many albums, but he's written for film, TV, and theater as well. I would love to marry all of my passions and create songs for the pop world. But also create new pop-inspired theater. Maybe down the road, I'll get to do an original work at a place like TUTS! That would be a dream.

Brett Cullum: It would be a total dream, and I can tell you right now. I've never seen Elton John do NEWSIES, so you're already a little bit ahead. I don't think he's gonna be doing a dance audition anytime.

Ben Chavez: Yeah, he can wear the sparkles, but he may not dance in the sparkles.

Brett Cullum: You mentioned some of your musical influences when you were growing up. Who are your idols? You mentioned Frank Sinatra and a couple of other people, but who are you listening to? If I went into Ben Chavez's playlists, what would I find?

Ben Chavez: Well, I'm an old soul. I'm gonna say that upfront, and I'm a millennial. So a lot of my music taste kind of stopped in, like, 2001. As I said, growing up, we listened to a lot of oldies. There was a lot of Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr.! But my number one idol is Billy Joel, his music. He was my music teacher. I'll say that. Because I was able to play music by ear as a kid, I learned his greatest hits volumes one and two. That was the greatest gift that my parents gave me was that 2 CD set of his greatest hits, one and two. I listened to those tracks on repeat and extracted the chords from those recordings. Those twenty or so songs are what taught me everything I know on the piano. I've seen him now twelve times in concert. I'm dying to meet him, just to thank him for his music and his storytelling through music because if it were not for that two-disc set, I don't know that I would be so heavily involved in the arts these days. He is an icon for me, so I have to say number one, Billy Joel, and then other piano greats like Elton John, Stevie Wonder, and Carole King.

And there's a guy now who's releasing some incredible pop, R and B, soul music! His name is PJ Morton. He's the keyboard player for Maroon 5 and has his own amazing solo career. So he's like the contemporary artist who inspires me.

Brett Cullum: I noticed in your bio we mentioned that you're a recording artist. Is there anywhere we can find your music?

Ben Chavez: Yes, this is good. I'm so happy to plug my own music anywhere I can. I have 6, or 7 singles out that are on Spotify, Apple Music, and also Amazon Music. Anywhere that you listen to music, and if you have an Alexa or some kind of smart device at home, you can just tell her to play music by Ben Chavez, and they'll do it. But I will say I just this past week released a new holiday single, which is called “In my Arms This Christmas.” Surprisingly, this song has had in its first week more streams than any of my other non-holiday singles, so I think that holiday music may be my new niche. I co-collaborated on that song with a college friend of mine named Melanie Herrera! I have another holiday song and that one is called “Finally Home for Christmas.” It's totally R and B soul-inspired. There's a horn section and that one's a really fun one. So please stream the songs. The best thing you can do for an Indie artist is add songs to your own personal playlists. Spotify really loves that, and it kind of ensures that whenever you put on “My Favorites Playlist,” new artist songs will get some extra streams just because you're playing a playlist that you always play. I encourage people to add my songs to their playlists if they enjoy them.

Brett Cullum: Oh, I'm adding them right now!

Ben Chavez: Boom. Thank you.

Ben Chavez will be appearing in THEATRE UNDER THE STARS production of FROZEN through December 29th. He can also be seen playing piano usually every other Friday night at Michael’s Outpost on Richmond. And you can stream his songs everywhere! You can find him online at https://www.benchavezmusic.com/ . 

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