Interview: Quinn Mattfeld Promises an Amazing Theatrical Experience with MATILDA THE MUSICAL at the Fisher Theatre

"I saw Matilda on Broadway for the first time after I had been cast in the show. At intermission, I said to my wife, 'this could be my favorite show I've ever seen.' I'm not a musical theatre person, yet it is one of the most unique things I have ever witnessed on stage,' said Quinn Mattfeld, who plays Mr. Wormood, in Matilda the Musical, which arrives this Thursday, March 9th at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit.

The critically acclaimed show is a winner of fifty international awards including four Tony Awards and seven Olivier Awards, including Best Musical, and best known for being the beloved children's novel penned by Roald Dahl since it was release in 1988. "Matilda is a story of a very special little girl who is up against some pretty insurmountable odds at home because of terrible parents - yours truly and her mother," explains Mattfeld. "Her mother is really only interested in how she looks and her father is a really sleazy car salesman. Neither of them are particularly nice to Matilda and don't encourage her reading or interests in stories. When she goes to school, she has to face the headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, who is also not very nice. No one seems to recognize that she is this very exceptional child. It's about her finding her way in the world, figuring out how to navigate around the not so nice bullies in her life, and finally finding some happiness. The great thing about this show, I think, is it talks about how important it is to tell stories. That in the process of telling a story, it ends up affecting your life. So it's really about Matilda telling her own story instead of other people telling it to her. "

With this show coming from such a beloved and well-known book, there is always the question of will the fans be happy? Mattfeld praises the work of Tim Minchin who wrote the lyrics and Dennis Kelly who wrote the book for the musical and assures fans of the Dahl book that they will not be disappointed because he feels that they loved the original book as well. "Its clearly part of Tim's DNA because he speaks that language. They managed to keep a lot of the strange angles, a lot of the bizarre points of views, the wacky characters, and also the darkness that is in it. There is also a little darkness around the edges of Roald Dahl's stories. Tim and Dennis have really managed to find all that," he said. "So I think it's kind of like you walk in the theatre and it really is like opening that book up and letting it live on stage."

Mattfeld has a lot of training to tackle the role of Mr. Wormwood. He has an undergraduate degree in Shakespeare from University of Oregon, a graduate degree from Penn State, worked at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, and then multiple years teaching and as a company member with PCPA before he came to Matilda the Musical. "I've done Shakespeare for a long time, so children in Shakespeare always have terrible things happen to them," he laughs, "The children that I interact with the most here are the Matilda's and they are just little amazing professionals who spend most of their day as a kid and end up going on stage and carrying this two hour plus show. It's really impressive to work with these little kids and how solid they are on stage. As for me, in terms of preparing for the role, I try to find what Mr. Wormwood essentially wants. This is a guy who wants to be respected. Then I look at a couple of guys who always needs respect and Rodney Dangerfield does. I start fiddling with my tie a lot and all of sudden it becomes it becomes this tic that Dangerfield has, which then turns into this character type in my brain. What I'm basically playing is a villain clown. So I like to look at what are big personality clowns and how do I make that my own? And by making it my own, how do I make it a unique Mr. Wormwood personality trait? So that's kind of a little window into the process."

If Mattfeld has not convinced by now to see Matilda the Musical, he has one final thing to say, "so my big push for why people in Detroit should go see this as opposed to something else is because you are never going to see something like Matilda, you're just not. It's so unique and so different. And this is from someone who has spent their life in the theatre, I went in, saw things, and thought I have never seen that on stage before; I have never seen anyone try to do that. It's not just that we are up there singing and dancing, there are amazing theatrical -I don't want to give anything away - but there are a lot of theatrical magic that is impressive and hard to do that is a really good reason to go to show itself. You just don't see something like this very often."

Matilda the Musical opens Thursday at Fisher Theatre in Detroit and runs through March 20th. For more information or tickets, visit www.BroadwayInDetroit.com.

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