BWW Interviews: Gregory Pember takes on The Friday Five (minus one)

Inspired by BroadwayWorld.com's Friday Six, welcome to Nashville.BroadwayWorld.com's latest installment of The Friday Five: five questions designed to help you learn more about the talented people you'll find onstage throughout the Volunteer state.

Today, the spotlight falls upon Gregory Pember, who is currently onstage at Clarksville's Roxy Regional Theatre, opening tonight in the Tony Award-winning Duncan Sheik/Steven Sater musical Spring Awakening, based on German playwright Frank Wedekind's play of the same name. Greg takes on the role of Moritz Stiefel, the dreamy-eyed, nervous and sex-obsessed teenager with the interesting hair in the recent Broadway and touring productions-and the role that won John Gallagher Jr. the Tony Award for Featured Actor in a Musical.

"I am very excited to be playing Moritz in this production," he says.

In fact, Moritz is just the latest on his resume that boasts some of the most sought-after musical theater roles. I first saw Greg in 2010 when he played Jack (a role he effortlessly made his own) in The Roxy's sumptuous version of Into the Woods.

Find out what makes Gregory Pember tick-what keeps him going show after show, role after role-in today's installment of The Friday Five (although he very cagily neglects to answer our query about the identity of his theatrical crush) and then get yourself to Clarksville and see him among director Tom Thayer's cast of Spring Awakening, which runs through May 5.

What was your first "live onstage" taste of theater? When I was six-years-old my grandmother took me to see Donny Osmond in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in Chicago and she told me that I sat on The Edge of my seat the entire show and never once blinked.  

What is your favorite pre-show ritual? I like to visualize my family in the audience and I feel very supported and cared for before I go out on stage.

What's your most memorable "the show must go on" moment? When I was thirteen and playing Oliver in Vancouver, the guy playing Noah who worked in the funeral home never showed up for a matinee and I had to go on as Noah and someone else had to cover for me as Oliver in that scene... It was very scary, but I did it.

What's your dream role? Boq in Wicked and Princeton in Avenue Q.

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