Tony Yazbeck Reveals How He Took Matters Into His Own Hands to Get Cast in GYPSY
The actor, who ultimately landed the role of Tulsa, also explains why he thought he was going to be fired.
When it came to playing Tulsa in Gypsy, there was no stopping Tony Yazbeck from getting an audition.
The actor has a long history with the Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim-Arthur Laurents musical. Yazbeck made his Broadway debut as a child playing a newsboy in the 1989 Tyne Daly-led revival, so when the opportunity came around to revisit the classic, he leapt (quite literally) at the chance.
“I knew that part [of Tulsa] like it was born in me,” Yazbeck said on the Friday, August 7, episode of the I Wanna Be Like You podcast.
However, at the time Jay Binder was casting the Patti LuPone revival — which had a run at New York City Center Encores! ahead of its Broadway transfer — Yazbeck was told that he wasn’t what the creative team was looking for.
“It was hard for me to get in to be seen for that role originally,” Yazbeck told podcast host Elbi Cespedes. “I was not at all what you would look like to be Tulsa. I was a little older than probably [they] wanted. I think I was 28 at the time.”
But Yazbeck was determined to get in the room, and he and his agent would not stop pestering casting director Binder despite their positive working relationship.
When that didn’t work, “I remember thinking who can I connect to that’s [involved in this production] that was in the last revival,” said Yazbeck. “It was Bonnie Walker. She was restaging the Jerome Robbins choreography for this show the same way she did the Tyne Daly one.”
Yazbeck found Walker’s number and cold-called her. “She had no idea who it was,” said Yazbeck, adding that he was “scrambling on the phone” trying to think of a way in.
The actor quickly brought up his mother, who he said was “backstage a lot” during his time on Broadway as a child and “kind of pushy” like the character of Rose.
Walker made the connection and invited Yazbeck to the final call back, which was the next day — and luckily, he was already prepared. Yazbeck knew the original choreography to “All I Need Is the Girl,” and when he was given the chance to perform it for the creative team, book writer Laurents began “crying.”
“I walk out, and Jay brings me down the hallway,” Yazbeck recalled. “He said, ‘For the rest of your life, you’re allowed to do whatever you want and tell me I’m wrong.’ And he’s like, ‘Good job being bold.’”
Yazbeck was ultimately cast as Tulsa, one of the boys in Rose’s act who runs away with June. His dream was coming true until one day of rehearsal had him thinking he was going to get fired.
Working with legendary playwright and director Laurents, who died in May 2011 at age 93, could be challenging at times. “The ways he got attention [and] the ways he wanted me to get his attention was brutal,” said Yazbeck. “I thought I was fired once.”
While the cast of Gypsy was rehearsing for the City Center run, Yazbeck was asked to show off Tulsa’s big song-and-dance number for the first time but admitted that he “wasn’t ready to perform it.”
“He just wanted to see it,” said Yazbeck. “[Laurents] stopped it, and he gets up, and he comes over to me, and he said, ‘What happened? Where did it go?’ And he went, ‘It’s gone. It’s gone.’ And I kind of knew what he meant by that — the thing that made him so attracted to me in that performance — which just hurt me. I was stunned, and I couldn’t move.”
Casting director Binder told Yazbeck’s agent, “It’s not going well for Tony right now. Arthur’s not sure of him.”
Yazbeck recalled, “I’m crying in my 46th Street apartment thinking the best thing that’s ever happened to me is being taken away from me again because I just didn’t show up well enough for him.”
But things took a turn the following day when Yazbeck performed the number again. After running through it, Laurents simply told Yazbeck, “It’s back.”
“A few days later, I’m telling other people this story in the cast, and they went, ‘He did that s**t to get your attention. He did that entire f**king 24-hour experiment to get you on your toes,’” said Yazbeck. “And I was like, ‘That is abuse.’ But at the time I’m fine with it.”
Following its City Center run, Gypsy opened March 27, 2008, at the St. James Theatre, where it played for 332 performances.
Photo Credit: Jennifer Broski
