BWW Exclusive: Jon Peterson to Mark 10th Anniversary Starring in GEORGE M. COHAN TONIGHT!; Script Set for Release Friday

Jon Peterson has a lot to celebrate right now.

Peterson, who won numerous honors when he starred in Chip Deffaa's Off-Broadway musical play "George M. Cohan Tonight!" at the Irish Repertory Theater, will celebrate on Friday his tenth year of starring in the show, which--since its debut in New York--has taken him all across the country. He'll have cake and ice cream to mark the 10th anniversary of his first performance in the show in New York, right after his Friday night performance at the Broward Stage Door Theater in Coral Springs, Florida, where he's currently doing a five-week engagement.

Friday will also mark the official publication of the script for "George M. Cohan Tonight!" (being published and licensed by Steele Spring Stage Rights). Tour dates will then take Peterson and the play to Pennsylvania and New Jersey in May.

On May 3rd--which is being proclaimed "Jon Peterson Day" at the 13th Street Repertory Theater in New York City--Peterson will sing a song or two from the show, and be presented with the first copy of the published script, at the 13th Street Rep, 50 West 13th Street, NYC. (The salute to Peterson will take place following the May 3rd matinee of Deffaa's musical "Mad About the Boy.") Cohan's great-granddaughter, actress Jennifer Cohan Ross, will represent the family at the celebration. And plans are being finalized for a 10th Anniversary performance of the whole show in New York, on a date to be announced soon.

Few actors get to play one role, off-and-on, for a full decade. And Peterson--who has starred in numerous shows in his native England as well as the US--hopes to be able to perform in this show, whenever bookings permit, for decades more to come. He believes that playwright/director Chip Deffaa, who wrote the show expressly for him, has given him the role of a lifetime. And he loves playing it.

"I can't believe that Chip Deffaa would still want me to play Cohan. I'm so grateful," Peterson comments. "I'm better in the role today than I was 10 years ago. I've really grown into the part. I feel such a connection to Cohan and to the play; I feel so attached to it. Nothing is the script has changed. It's exactly the same script that Chip wrote for me a decade ago. But it just feels richer and more textured to me now. It's the exact same play--but maybe i've grown up a bit."

Deffaa, who has seen other actors star in his show, everywhere from London, England to Seoul, Korea, remarks: "No one else can touch Jon. For my money, he's the greatest song-and-dance man working today. He gives 100% at every performance. I've watched him do the show countless times--not just in New York City, but in New Orleans, Boston, Worcester, Rochester.... It's always fresh, and he always surprises me."

For his portrayal of Cohan, Peterson has been honored by the Drama League, nominated for a Drama Desk Award, and he's won awards ranging from the Bistro Award to the Connecticut Critics Circle Award. And Deffaa has won the IRNE Award for the play. The cast album for "George M. Cohan Tonight!" is available from Sh-K-Boom / Ghostlight Records.

Self-taught, master showman George M. Cohan (1878-1942) rose from poverty to became the greatest single figure in the theater in his day--a top entertainer, songwriter, playwright, dancer, director, and producer. No one in the history of the theater ever did so many different things so well. And with shows like "Little Johnny Jones" and "Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway," he pretty much invented the Broadway musical.

Peterson comments: "The story in 'George M. Cohan Tonight!' is wonderful. I like Cohan's character--his values were so honorable--and he was such a genius... A little bit of him inspires me every time I perform the show. I feel like he doesn't want me to screw up, it puts some extra pressure on me, gives me extra responsibility. I don't want to let him down--or let Chip Deffaa down."

Deffaa stresses: "This is as challenging a musical-theater role as exists anywhere. 'George M. Cohan Tonight!' is a one-man show with two dozen songs, and it's a monster to perform. For 95 minutes the star sings, talks, and tap-dances all-out, without pause. There are very few actors who can carry it off. Emmy Award-winner Steve Garrin has produced a promo video for us. And just watching Jon Peterson portray Cohan in that short video gives an idea of the energy he expends each night."

Check out the video!

Deffaa adds: "One reason I've also written other plays about Cohan, for larger casts--and they've all been published and produced--is that those shows are easier to perform; there's not so much weight on a single performer's shoulders. But 'George M. Cohan Tonight!' requires a remarkably gifted, remarkably committed actor. I've never met anyone more committed than Peterson." In the 10 years Peterson has done the show, he's never had an understudy, and he's never missed a performance.

Deffaa observes: "I've got some very loyal understudies who've done other shows for me, like Ken Adams and Tony Medlyn. I love 'em to pieces, but I wouldn't let them near this show. They couldn't handle this show. It would eat them alive. Peterson makes it seem effortless. But by the end of each performance, Peterson is absolutely spent. When producer Hansem Song mounted the show in Korea, he had to have Korea's three top musical comedy stars alternating in the role, because it was simply too much for any of them to do night after night. But Peterson has always put everything he possibly could into his performances. It was the same when he starred in 'Cats' on the West End, or starred as the Emcee in the national tour of 'Cabaret' in the U.S."

Peterson trained with England's Royal Ballet. But old Hollywood musicals, which he watched on TV from childhood, instilled in him a love for musical comedy. By age 18, he was in his first musical on the West End, playing "Rolf" in "The Sound of Music," starring Petula Clark. One big musical after another followed: "A Chorus Line," "Cavalcade,""On Your Yoes," "Sophisticated Ladies," "She Loves Me"....

He followed his instincts in creating his career. When he concluded, during the rehearsal process, that one big West End show--a proposed musical adaptation of "Mutiny on the Bounty"--was going to be dreadful, he bought his way out of the contract, adding in a note: "This is a small price to have to pay, to not do your show." He wound up starring in "Cats" instead. Audiences--and Andrew Lloyd Weber, who personally auditioned him--took delight in his performance. But he knew he was working as hard as--or perhaps even harder than--his highly trained body could take. After finishing each performance, he would throw up, offstage.

Rob Marshall and Sam Mendes selected Peterson to star as the Emcee in the U.S. national tour of "Cabaret." For two years, he played the role on the road, then understudied the role on Broadway. He responded to an add Chip Deffaa had placed in Backstage, announcing auditions for a forthcoming show about George M. Cohan.

Deffaa recalls the audition clearly. "I'd seen a zillion people; none of them interested me at all. I had a notion that i wanted to do a show about Cohan--a lifelong hero of mine--but only if I could find someone sensational. Jon Peterson came in to the audition room at Ripley-Grier, sang a bit of an obscure Judy Garland song--'It Never Rains But it Pours'--and I was electrified. I trust my instincts totally. I told Jon, 'I'm calling off the auditions right now; you're my Cohan.' I sent everyone else who was waiting to audition home; they were pretty annoyed. Jon asked me: 'What do we do now?' This was a Friday. I told him: 'You go home. I'm going to start writing a script; we'll start rehearsals on Monday. I'll hand out pages as we go along. There's no pay. But I have total confidence in you; you're exactly what I've been looking for. We'll open in three weeks.'"

Trusting his own instincts (just as Deffaa had trusted his), Peterson quit his well-paying job with Roundabout Theater Company, as understudy in the Broadway revival of "Cabaret," to take a chance--for no pay!--to workshop a Cohan show Deffaa would write during rehearsals.

Peterson recalls: "Roundabout thought I was an idiot. They were just shocked that I'd want to leave them to take a non-paying job. They didn't understand it all. It was way over their heads. But for me , it's never been about money, it's about creating art, and the next adventure...seeing what's ahead. That was my reason. So I sacrificed some money! It's just money. Doing this Cohan show has inspired me. I'd make the same decision again, if faced with the same choice. Doing this show of Chip's has inspired me."

Deffaa and Peterson both found it remarkable that they both knew instantly that they should work together. "The funny thing was, I knew as soon as Jon began singing that he was my Cohan. I made the decision without even seeing him dance--and he's a world-class dancer, with Royal Ballet training, and he's choreographed the show, too.I love watching him dance, no less than watching him sing."

Deffaa presented Peterson in several different Cohan shows he wrote quickly, one after another, for different cast sizes. And everyone from Sarah Jessica Parker to Elaine Stritch came to see the shows. In the Spring of 2005, Deffaa gave Peterson the script of a one-man Cohan show. They tried it out wherever they could--from a club on 46th Street in Manhattan, to a Minneapolis fairground. The Irish Rep (under the direction of Charlotte Moore and Ciaran O'Reilly) licensed the play, opened it Off-Broadway to rave reviews, and the rest is history.In the years since then, Peterson has turned down some more-lucrative offers (such as appearing on Broadway in "Mary Poppins," which didn't much interest him) to continue doing Cohan. As he puts it: "Cohan came first!"

Deffaa notes: "The theater world could use a few more people willing to take chances the way Jon Peterson does. Leaving Roundabout to gamble on me when I hadn't yet written a word of the script?! Trusting my passion?!? That's just so typical of Jon. And so wonderful. I've written other parts for him since then--in shows like 'The Seven Little Foys' and 'Mad About the Boy'--but he's been too busy doing my Cohan show to play those parts. I wish he could be cloned! Congrats to Jon on playing Cohan for 10 years. Carol Channing played 'Dolly,' off-and-on, for 30 years. So I figure Jon's got quite a few more good years to go!

"If he ever gets tired of doing the one-man show, I've got still another Cohan script, with different songs and stories, that I'd like to develop. I'd have a terrific young dancer--like Giuseppe Bausilio or Nick Keeperman or Nicholas Gray--play Cohan as a youth; have Peterson play Cohan grown up; and have Joel Gray, if he'd agree, play Cohan as an old man. That'd be fun! But we'll have to wait a while before we could ever try something like that; there's still plenty of interest in this one-man show. And Jon's just getting his second wind!"

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