BWW Interviews: Jeremy Kushnier Talks Stratford Festival's TOMMY

Jeremy Kushnier is a well-known musical theatre actor who has starred in many famous and renowned musicals on Broadway and across North America, including "Footloose", "Rent", "Jersey Boys", "Tommy", Jesus Christ Superstar", and "Next to Normal", just to name a few.

Jeremy returns to the Stratford Festival for his second season in the musicals "Tommy" and "Fiddler on the Roof".

The musical "Tommy" was written and created by Pete Townshend with songs written just for the musical by The Who. It is a story about Tommy Walker, who is perceived to be deaf, dumb and blind as a result of a traumatic childhood experience. He seems to be lost in life until he reveals that he has an incredible talent for the game of pinball. After that pinball game, his sight, hearing and speech are suddenly restored and he's called a living miracle. After this miraculous happening, people flock to him for enlightenment, but will they want to hear what he has to say?

Jeremy sat down with BWW on a sunny morning in Stratford to talk about his character in "Tommy", revisiting The Who's "Tommy" after 17 years, rehearsing for both "Tommy" and "Fiddler on the Roof" at the same time, and how becoming a father has changed his role as an actor.

BWW: Thank you for taking the time to do this interview with me, Jeremy. How does it feel to be a part of the Tony nominated musical The Who's "Tommy" at the Stratford Festival?

JEREMY: Super exciting! It's cool because it's sort of my second time with this piece. I did it almost 18 years ago in Toronto when the Canadian company originally did it, so it's really exciting to be a part of it for that reason, and the fact that it's coming up on the 20^th anniversary of the production in New York - the fact that The Who are about to celebrate their 50^th - It's a really cool time to be doing this show.

BWW: Tell us a bit about The Who's "Tommy" and about the character you play.

JEREMY: I play Captain Walker. He's Tommy's father. He was presumed lost - he was sort of presumed a Prisoner of War - and he was captain in the Royal Air Force. It's a really cool role! It's definitely a step in a new direction for me as far as being a dad in a show. But it's really great - it's really exciting! I don't know what to say without giving too much away - it's really an exciting show! It's really a cool piece and you know I really love Rock n' Roll musicals - they're sort of my favourite thing to do, so it's cool to get to rock out to The Who's music.

BWW: You were also in the 1995 production of The Who's "Tommy" in Toronto. Who did you play in that production? And what's it like revisiting the musical again after 17 years?

JEREMY: I played Pinball Lad #2 - you get to sing the second verse of "Pinball Wizard". The cool thing about this piece is that there's not really a big definition between principals and ensemble members. Like in most good Des [McAnuff] pieces, the ensemble is exactly that - everybody has a really great feature and everybody is really integral to the story - there's nobody that is just standing back, like in a kick-line, so that's cool. And as far as coming back to it, it's really neat to see it from a different perspective. It's quite a moving story - the story about this family that's dealing with a seemingly autistic kid - not that that's what he has or that's what we're playing - but it's of the same sort of ilk, and how they deal with it and the tortures that they sort of have to - deciding whether or not to put him into a care, and all these questions that are devastating as a parent. So it's exciting to look at it from that point of view.

BWW: Are there any huge differences between the 1995 and 2013 productions of The Who's "Tommy"?

JEREMY: The biggest differences honestly are: a) the cast, because it's just different people, like whenever you do a show and you put a new cast together, there are automatically little tiny intricate differences. And then the other big difference is really the technology. The fact that 17 years ago these guys were doing amazing work pushing boundaries as far as what was capable on stage technically and now we're almost two decades in the future - what they're able to do on stage is just sort of mind blowing, the differences technically. That being said, the book has remained almost totally intact, the score is totally intact, the idea behind the piece is all still there, the orchestrations have changed a little bit - Rick Fox is amazing and sort of going back to original orchestrations - sort of the same way he did with "Jesus Christ Superstar" - he went back to the original album, The Who's album, not the Broadway cast recording, and sort of paired back the orchestrations a little bit - made it a little bit more Rock n' Roll and maybe a little less specific to the era that it was done. Doing it in the 90s gave it a very specific sort of sound, which isn't bad, but Rick and Des have definitely made an effort to take it back to sort of an original sound.

BWW: What's the most exciting and the most challenging part of playing Captain Walker?

JEREMY: The most exciting part: I think that being sort of the patriarch of this family that is sort of falling apart and seeing how this character would try to keep it together, and having survived a war and all these things are amazingly exciting from an acting standpoint. And then you get to do really cool stuff! There's this amazing paratroopers event that happens onstage - I won't give too much away, but it's quite a beautiful amazing spectacle moment, and scary and dangerous and fun at the same time. And then working with this amazing cast has been really incredible. I think the hard part of this character is, for me, is learning to play his subtlety and his sort of British-ness is the biggest challenge because there's definitely more of a stillness, a stoic-ness that this character sort of embodies, and not necessarily totally natural in my body - I tend to the quick movement and the bigger movement before subtlety, so that's probably been the most challenging. Captain Walker is a very listening character - not that he's anything like Jesus - but in the same way that Paul [Nolan] did an amazing job the first fifteen, twenty minutes of "Jesus Christ Superstar" where he spent most of that time sort of actively listening - I think there's a lot of that that happens in this piece too.

BWW: What did you do to prepare for the role of Captain Walker?

JEREMY: Preparation wise I feel like I know this piece so well because of how much time I spent with it, so there was not a lot of pre-work. I did a little bit of research about veterans of the war and what it would have been like for somebody in the RAF and what it would have been like for somebody during that time. And then the Stratford Festival and Des is amazing at doing dramaturgy - we have an amazing dramaturge that came in and really took us through the history of The Who and then also took us through the history of this time when this piece would've taken place, so a lot of that work was not done for us, but we all got to sort of do it together.

BWW: What was it like rehearsing for both "Tommy" and "Fiddler on the Roof" at the same time?

JEREMY: I was sort of a little bit nervous about learning two shows at the same time but it was great. I feel like rehearsing two pieces at the same time - there are a lot of things that are I think innately good and bad about it. One of the things is because you're learning so much - you're exercising that muscle, it just becomes stronger and stronger and you're just able to retain, and that's cool and exciting. The only problem with it is that you sometimes can spend a long time away from the piece so you rehearse one day and you have a great day and then you go two days away and then you come back and you're like "Oh shit! What did we do two days ago? I don't remember any of this now", so that can be a little bit difficult. You can also have sort of a false sense of security: you look at the schedule and you go "Ooo! You have three months to learn a show" but it's not - it's like two days a week for three months which can be very hard. So in that way it's difficult - like I said, I sort of had a leg up because I'd done "Fiddler on the Roof" before and I'd done "Tommy" before so I sort of had a bit of a leg up as far as knowledge of the show.

BWW: This is your second season at the Stratford Festival.

JEREMY: Sort of. I mean officially yes. My first season was really only a week long so it's sort of hard to take too much credit for that season, but I officially did work here for a week two years ago during the season that "Jesus Christ Superstar" was here. So yeah! Officially my second season! Unofficially, I really feel like it's my first, like I'm really just learning about the town and how the Festival works and it's just a great place - it's really an amazing place to work.

BWW: Every theatre actor dreams of being in a show on Broadway - but you've been in not one, but four musicals on Broadway: the original Broadway production of "Footloose", "Rent", "Jesus Christ Superstar", and most recently "Jersey Boys"! What's it like being in a show on Broadway?

JEREMY: I mean all the amazing things opening on Broadway. You know, you have all the amazing things you sort of always dreamed of, like your first opening and you know like walking through Midtown to go into the stage door and seeing all the other actors, and all those amazing events that you do at the beginning of a show and going to the Tony Awards - you know, all those things are incredible. But really for actors that are working out there, it's like working anywhere else. Doing a show here or doing a show in a regional theatre in the States or doing a touring production - as long as the work is good, it's really the same. The props look exactly the same backstage, the audience - all those little shadowy figures out there - they all look the same - it's the same everywhere you go. When you stop and think about the history, it's pretty incredible to be doing a show on Broadway. But I think the biggest thing I learned about being on Broadway is as soon as I did my first tour and I left - because after the first time working on Broadway, it's like "well I'll never work anywhere else now" - but it's not, it's just working.

BWW: You've worked with Des McAnuff on a few productions, including him directing you in the 1995 production of "The Who's Tommy", "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Jersey Boys". What's it like having Des as the director for "Tommy"?

JEREMY: It's incredible! Like you said, a good portion of my career has been working with Des. I love working with him. I think he's got amazing ideas. He always seems to be about three steps ahead of everybody. And at the same time he's also very, compared to some directors, very open to discussion about what's going on, even if you're probably pretty aware that his answer is going to be the right answer - he's still open for discussion about stuff. It's great! It's really exciting and you know, I feel like I have the same sort of feeling about theatre, especially his theatre that he does - I think he said something really great the other day about what we do - not to indirectly quote Alice Ripley and her Tony speech - but what we do is important - what we do is art and there is no, especially in a place like Stratford, I think it can become quite evident that these two art forms: classic theatre and musical theatre, it can exist amazingly together and are as important as each other and can be as moving and as beautiful as each other, and I don't think there's any need for them to exist apart or separately - I think they are totally capable of complimenting each other and have equal amounts to teach and move people. So for that, when you hear your director say stuff like that, you know you become very aware that we're all sort of here for the same purpose and that's exciting. And not just because he's sitting behind you, but Wayne our choreographer, it's been really incredible working with him again - it's my second show with Wayne and it's really incredible having the last time I worked with the two of them, I was 19 years old and it was my first big production. It's really amazing to see this work come back to life again through different people and watch it sort of inhabit these new bodies and watch it inhabit this new stage and a new time and I think it's going to be really exciting!

BWW: Since we're on the topic of Des McAnuff and "Jersey Boys", you were in many productions of "Jersey Boys" across North America, including the First National Tour which ended its run very recently (Sunday, April 28, 2013). Could you share with us one of your favourite memories of being a part of "Jersey Boys"?

JEREMY: Sure! I mean I've got so many fond memories - the fact that I met my wife doing this show and our first baby performed with her in utero for the first six months of her fetal life - those were amazing experiences. I'm trying to think of one good one... there are so many good ones... I guess that was sort of my favourite, you know the fact that I met my wife doing it. The cool thing about my journey with the tour was that it all happened in Toronto, so it was in my homeland and in Des' sort of pseudo-homeland, so that's super exciting.

BWW: What makes this show, particularly this cast, so great to work with?

JEREMY: This show is super special to me on so many different levels. But the cast is great! They're a really warm, loving, supportive cast. You really couldn't hope for a group of better individuals.

BWW: Do you have a favourite song from the musical "Tommy" or from another one of The Who's albums? Which one?

JEREMY: Yeah tons! I think my favourite song in the show is - there's a section called "Sally Simpson" - just sort of got this Bo Diddley, Rockabilly feel to it - that's one of my favourite songs as far as singing. But now having played this part, "I Believe My Own Eyes" which originally, I think as a 19 year old, I was kind of like "what's this song about these two adults doing in this rock musical?" but now I - I guess maybe because I'm an adult or because I have kids - it's really become one of my new favourite songs - I really really dig it. It's a really fun song to sing. The fact that it's the only new song in the show written by Pete [Townshend], it's really cool. It's on the original Broadway recording.

BWW: It's not in the movie though, right?

JEREMY: It's not in the movie. It's not in their [The Who's] original concept recording, so yeah, it's cool.

BWW: You could be performing in both "Tommy" and "Fiddler on the Roof" on the same day more than once a week (one in the afternoon and the other in the evening). What do you do to keep your energy up and to stay focused?

JEREMY: Coffee helps! From Revel Caffe. I don't know. As far as energy, they're very different pieces so I don't feel like you're sort of drawing from necessarily the same place. I think it's going to be a learning curve for me because I haven't done it yet, so we'll see. I think that the fact that they're not the same piece I think will help because sometimes you can get an eight show week and you sort of get into like a "Oh god, I gotta go and do this show again. I don't know how I'm going to do this show and be like honest about it right now" but because they're different shows I think that sort of helps - you get to do one in the afternoon and one at night, and it's always a little bit different - it keeps you on your toes a little bit.

BWW: Pursuing a career in acting is a little like chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. What keeps you motivated?

JEREMY: My kids. Now I mean that's the only difference that it's become less about trying to fulfill some weird fantasy about being a celebrity or about awards or about any of that kind of stuff - it becomes about feeding my kids and making sure that we have health insurance and keeping my family together or trying to keep my family together. That's the biggest motivation at this point in my life.

BWW: Since rehearsing for "Tommy" and "Fiddler on the Roof", and returning to the Stratford Festival, have you learned anything new about yourself that you didn't know before?

JEREMY: I'm a lot older than I thought I was, Frances. I think that we all sort of tend to freeze ourselves in some weird point in our lives, and I think I froze myself at about 23 or 24 and I keep forgetting that I'm not, so I have to remind myself every day before I go and like do something like playing a sport or doing something that I probably need to take a minute - that's the biggest thing I've learned about myself.

BWW: What do you want the audience to come away with after seeing "Tommy"?

JEREMY: I don't know. I think that it's very much an open book. I just hope that they enjoy themselves and are as moved as I am by the piece - everybody talks about the spectacle of it and the music and all that stuff - but really at its heart it's quite a moving piece and it's a piece about this family trying to keep it together through a very difficult period, and through a very difficult problem. So I think that's it - so if we can sort of communicate that through and despite and because of all of the spectacle and rock music and all that stuff, then I think we've done our job.

BWW: Do you have any advice for actors who want to get into professional theatre?

JEREMY: I always say sort of the same thing: it's really about wanting to be in theatre for the right reason. Not getting into theatre because you think that you'll meet celebrities and make a lot of money and win awards - none of that stuff will probably happen. The hard parts of being in the business are only challenged and taken down by the fact that you really love doing this - that there's nothing else you could've imagined doing and that you sort of have a - without sounding super corny - sort of a calling to do this because if you don't, it sucks! It's not fun most of the times. Right now, I've got two months I've got to be away from my kids and I'm not in my home, and as cool as it seems, I'm still working. So the two hours that I'm at that theatre doing this cool show is awesome, but then there's still twenty-two hours that I have to spend by myself figuring out how not to like go super crazy, so it's hard. I would say that you really have to want to do it for the right reason, and that's it.

"Tommy" is playing at the Avon Theatre now through October 19th.

Tickets can be purchased in person at the box office, by phone at 1 800 567 1600, or online at www.stratfordfestival.ca

Photo Credit: Don Dixon

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