Quick Q&A: Bobby Steggert

I talked with one of my favorite actors, Bobby Steggert, about Ragtime and some of his other career highlights so far.

I first want to talk about your take on Younger Brother in Ragtime. How do you feel it differs from what’s been done before?

First of all I have no idea; I made it a strict point not to have any impression of what any other actor had done. At the base of things, it’s authentically mine. Secondly, there might be a propensity for an actor to play the ideas that Younger Brother is drawn to. I wanted to humanize him by making the people that he comes in contact with the driving force. I see it as an arc from small to large – he doesn’t know where to put his needs, so at first it’s superficial with Evelyn, and then when he sees Emma Goldman he’s never experienced a human being with that much passion before. I think it’s his passion for larger ideas that propels him. I focused on the need for human connection that he can’t find with his sister that leads to the eventual connection to Coalhouse.

Do you relate to that personally?

I had to find it; I’m basically a happy, well-adjusted person. I looked at the injustices that we’re experiencing today – banks foreclosing on people, marriage inequality, people denied their constitutional rights every day. I find that maddening and preposterous. That’s what I connected to.

Ragtime photos: Joan Marcus

Let’s talk about the changes to “He Wanted To Say”; how did those come about?

I understand that in the original it was more “park and bark” with the actors singing at each other. That felt wrong in rehearsals. I went to the director (Marcia Milgrom Dodge) and said that even though it’s a fantasy, I needed there to be conflict and give and take within that. Obviously she agreed and caught on to that idea that even within what they want to say to each other there would be struggle. Hopefully what we did was to activate it so the passion comes alive in storytelling, rather than them just proclaiming hopes and ideas.

The sense I got when I saw the show was that the audience was familiar with and thirsty to drink in that score of Ragtime. Do you feel that too while you’re performing it?

I do and I think it’s partly because the big, sweeping American musical is disappearing. I can’t even think of another new one – maybe in a chamber way The Light In The Piazza, or maybe Parade but that was 10 or 12 years ago. People are hungry for a big, grand, for lack of a better word anthemic musical that can transport them in a way that the new rock-driven musicals can’t quite do.

It’s also becoming increasingly rare to see a cast of many.

That first moment in the show with all of us on stage is as powerful for us as it is for the audience. It communicates that we are all going to tell this story together as one unit. Our director was smart in casting good people and not theatre celebrities or, worse, TV or movie celebrities. We approach it as an ensemble and we’re supportive of each other.

At the moment the show is subject to rumors that it’s closing, fueled in part by Reidel’s column a couple of weeks ago. Is that felt in the company?

We do feel it. We all understand that it is a business, a hard business, and that the show is expensive with the huge orchestra and the enormous cast. There’s been a huge increase in audience capacity; money is a different thing. We’re hopeful for the best, but prepared for bad news. We’re all really proud of telling this story that is well-written and meaningful and important to the American story. I, for one, am just taking it day by day. I’m prepared and excited to play the entire year of my contract, but if it were to close I would be excited and grateful just to have done it. Especially because when you’re young you are rarely given the chance to stretch yourself; you have to fight hard for those opportunities.

Are you talking about “male ingenue” roles?

I know how I look. I look a lot younger than I am and people don’t expect complexity or power from youthful performers and I understand that. So when I do get the chance to go there I’m cognizant of what a gift it is.

Before this, which role stretched you the most?

Yank!, the musical I did in Brooklyn and that will be at The York in February. How often are shows written around the story of a young person coming into adulthood? Usually that’s a secondary story. In Yank! the story is all about this young man coming into his manhood, his sexuality, and his power as a human being.

Was Speech and Debate, at LA Theatre Works, a stretch also?

Yeah, I loved doing comedy and using the more sarcastic, biting side of my personality. Stephen Karam (the playwright) is a good friend; I’d worked on his Columbinus at NYTW. I knew he was a special writer. I auditioned in New York for the role that Gideon Glick played. A year later when they were doing the show in LA it occurred to Stephen that I might be right for the other role, Solomon. I’d worked at that theatre before; they took a leap of faith and cast me.

photo: 110 In The Shade, Yank!, The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island

Tell me about being cast in the Broadway revival of 110 In The Shade.

I didn’t think I would get in to musicals. Up to that point I’d done plays, classical theatre in regionals and I’d studied Shakespeare in London. I had been the standby for Hally in the revival of Master Harold…and the boys that Lonny Price directed. My agent told me about the audition, saying it’s a musical but Lonny Price is directing and Audra McDonald is starring. Well hell yeah, I’ll go in for it! I did my singing and read my sides and then they asked if I could dance and I said no, I couldn’t. It seemed like they were thinking “Shit! This is the kid, but if he can’t dance that’s a problem”. They held a special dance audition for me a couple of weeks later where I met the choreographer. I treated it as an acting exercise: how would this character move? I guess they were heartened enough to cast me. I was shocked to get attention in that show. To me it was Audra’s show, it was John Cullum’s show, it was Steve Kazee’s who played Starbuck. People always reference it as my first big job. It started me on this journey into musicals that has been exciting and surprising.

I’m surprised to hear that you didn’t think you could dance, because I think immediately of the big tap number “Click” in Yank!.

I had taken one tap class Freshmen year. Really that was Jeffry Denman spending hours teaching me that number. We started out simple, then got more complex. His time and patience were responsible for that.

I saw you in The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island, which used projections as sets, and wondered what the experience was like to be acting in that environment.

I was telling people that it was like being a TV weatherman in front of a greenscreen. The images that Ben Katchor made were so beautiful but we were so close that it was like a Monet; we couldn’t see the world being created around us. In tech I asked “can I please step out and see what I’m pointing at?” It was a lesson in trusting and in using our fellow actors as the environment.

I’ve seen you a great many times in the audience at shows, especially at The Fringe a couple of years ago. When you’re able, are you a constant theatregoer as I am?

I’m a regular reader of your blog; I don’t see nearly as much as you do. But yes I love to see friends in workshops and readings and shows. For a while I was working on a soap, “All My Children”, which taught me how to be on camera and how to make choices quickly. But I was really hungry for theatre; I love being a part of the contribution that an audience brings to the theatrical experience.

Do you read reviews?

I don’t read reviews in major publications. If it’s praise, I have a fear of becoming complacent. If it’s negative it may hurt my feelings or it may make me second-guess a choice that either I or the director made, and that makes it harder to do the job. I trust my best friend for feedback – he’s a filmmaker and an ex-actor and he’ll tell me the truth – and there are a few directors I trust. Lonny Price is one – he has a care and respect for actors because he was one, and he has people’s best interests at heart. A performance isn’t a performance if it isn’t fully committed. I want to be the kind of actor who commits. People like Audra McDonald, Denis O’Hare, Bill Irwin – you may not agree with their choices, but you can’t criticize that they’ve committed to them with intelligence and integrity.

Is there a role you are aching to do?

I have to be honest. I’m really content with where I am right now so there really isn’t an ache. I just want to continue to get cast in roles that are complex and dangerous. I would rather do something where I think “Shit! How am I gonna do this?” than in roles that I can immediately recognize.