BWW Interviews: Jeff Madden Talks DANI GIRL

Dani Girl is an exciting new musical by New York writers Christopher Dimond and Michael Kooman, and it's opening in Toronto this weekend.  The writing pair have been dubbed one of the hottest duos currently on the theatre scene, and won the prestigious Jonathan Larson Award in 2010 for their work. Dani Girl enjoyed a successful run in Barrie through Talk is Free Theatre last year, and is back this month as a co-production with Show One Productions.  Gabi Epstein returns in the lead role of Dani, and she is joined by Jonathan Logan (who was also in the Barrie production), Jeff Madden and Amanda LeBlanc. The show will once again by directed by Toronto Star theatre critic Richard Ouzounian.

Dani Girl tells the story of a nine year old girl who is battling terminal cancer, and uses music, humour and imagination to show how she copes with her illness.  The intermission-less show occurs largely within Dani’s imagination, and various fictional characters and games to explore the serious themes and events that transpire as she battles cancer.  Hailed as “touching, lively and humourous” the show promises to make you laugh and cry, while providing a unique insight into the mind of a child.

BWW is thrilled to be profiling some of the people involved in this production.  On Wednesday we profiled Gabi Epstein, who plays the lead role of Dani.  Today we are talking to Jeff Madden, one of the newcomers to the production.  This is Jeff’s first performance since his award winning run as Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys, and he talks to us about the challenges associated with being the ‘new guy’ on the show, and about what it’s like tackling eleven characters in one production:

Congratulations on Dani Girl! How’s it coming so far?

It’s coming together and I think everybody is pretty happy with it. The tricky part is that you have two of the four actors who are show level because they’ve done it before, and then you have two actors who are new to it and so certain parts work perfectly and other parts still need some tweaking.

As the new guy to the production, what has the adjustment been like?

In a way it’s been really good that we are working with people who have done it before.  They know what works and what doesn’t and there is a level of shorthand there which really helps.  Technically this show is a remount despite the fact that half of us are new, so we have less time to rehearse and that knowledge comes in really handy.

It has also been an immense workload and a huge challenge.  I’ve never done a show where I’ve had to play so many different characters.  I play about eleven people in the show and so the challenge has been trying to make each one of them unique and more than just one dimensional.  It’s a fun challenge!

How do you even begin to tackle a task like that?

That’s what I said to myself before I started on it! I really had no idea how I was going to do it. That was one of the reasons I said yes to the project, because I wanted to do something very different.  I haven’t done theatre since Jersey Boys so I wanted the project to be interesting and different, and Dani Girl is both those things.

That being said, actually figuring out how you are going to make these characters up and have each one be unique is tricky.  I had some one on one rehearsals with the director and I gained a lot of insight that way.  The fun part about my characters is that they all exist in Dani’s imagination.  It’s the imagination of a nine year old girl, so they can be pretty outrageous.  I get to play this crazy French character, and then a crazy German character and they are silly and broad because they are in the mind of a nine year old. 

The show deals with some pretty mature subject matter.  Is it meant to be a tear jerker in addition to a comedy?

I think you would have to ask the writers that! But certainly if you’re going to write a show about a nine year old girl who is terminal with cancer then obviously it’s going to be sad.  This is a story about the end of this girl’s life.  Plus it is difficult subject matter.  I think everybody puts off thinking about death to a certain extent, and everyone finds it hard to talk about.  There’s a lot of fear associated with it but I don’t think that should scare people away from coming to see the show since the vast majority of it is comedy. 

This girl has an incredibly vivid imagination and she uses it to cope with what is happening to her.  She is stuck in a hospital and what do you killing time in a hospital? You play games.  She’s trying to figure out why she has cancer and how she can defeat it and make it go away, so she creates an amazing fantasy world.  I think that’s where the writers have found something very unique – an insight into the working mind of a nine year old under these circumstances.  It’s really profound.

Did you see the production when it was in Barrie?

Nope.  I had never heard any of the music before or seen the production.  I think that’s good for me because this way I’m not influenced by anything else and can approach the character in a more organic way.  Because all of these characters come out of her imagination it’s been an exercise in trying to remember back to when I was a kid and what it was like to play imaginary games.   

Vocally it seems like it would be a departure from what you’ve done in the past.  How different is this role from what you are used to?

Obviously it’s a big departure from Jersey Boys because it’s a completely different style of music.  We just have a pianist and a percussionist.  I would classify it as contemporary musical theatre style.  There are some songs that are very “pop-y” but we also have some songs that are your traditional musical theatre songs.  I actually don’t have the big numbers to sing, my role in this show is much more of an acting role.  That’s not to say I don’t sing, I still sing a lot, but I have the more zany numbers as I move from character to character.

So you’re the comic relief of the piece?

Because I’m playing these imaginary characters and everyone else is real then it gives me license to be zanier, and I think the writers have used that device to give my character the chance to provide comic relief. Everyone has their moments, but the others have to be more grounded in reality.

What is it like being directed by someone who has critiqued your work in the past and may very well critique it again in the near future?

It’s actually been great.  I’ve known Richard for a long time.  We first met when I was auditioning and eventually got cast to play a lead role in a show he wrote called “Emily” at the Charlottetown Festival.  Because it was a new work there was a lot of re-writing and rehearsing and so we had a lot of interaction and have maintained a good relationship over the years.  It can be hard because it’s his job to write what he feels about any given production, and sometimes that can be quite critical.  But you have to separate the man from the work and have that balance.

What would you say would appeal about this show to a younger audience?

First and foremost, the cast is all young and that should be inspiring to a younger audience.  I’m actually the old guy in the group! The second thing is that it’s a very recent show that has just had a major workshop so it’s yet to have a large production anywhere - so its fresh, new and exciting.  There’s no intermission, it’s edgy and real and funny and heartbreaking.  It’s exactly what you want theatre to be, it’s accessible and yet it’s still challenging.  There are no bells and whistles, its just story telling at its finest.  It shows that you don’t always need the ten million dollar production to tell a story, and that is incredibly inspiring.

When and Where?

Dani Girl

Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace

16 Ryerson Ave., Toronto

Performance Schedule:

February 16 – March 4, 2012

Monday to Saturday at 7:30PM (except Tuesday); Matinees on Saturday and Sunday at 2 PM

Tickets are $33 plus HST and service fee. They can be purchased through Arts Box Office at www.artsboxoffice.ca or (416) 504-7529

For more information please visit www.tift.ca.

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