Jake is a transformative actor. Him in "Little Shop of Horrors" is proof of that. Did he look like he could get anybody he wanted then? Absolutely not. Anyway Jordan, you should become a casting director just to make this happen. I loved Jake before, but after this week I'm simply enamored with him. I want him to play anything.
They/them.
"Get up the nerve to be all you deserve to be."
Jordan, I was actually thinking during Sunday how much I'd rather have seen him as Bobby than George. I know many disagree, but I thought Jake's George was too unaffected and, as somebody wrote on the main Sunday thread, "unaware." I wanted more deliberateness and power from him as George. The role of Bobby, however, requires a level of naïveté and a lack of raw force (up until Being Alive). I think Jake would be an amazing Bobby, and I'd likely much prefer him in that role than I did George.
My god, if he did two full scale Sondheim revivals, he would totally be on his way to becoming one our great current Sondheim interpreters. The man is crazy talented. Maybe in 15 years he'll be Ben in Follies. Currently, he'd be a ridiculously good Carl Magnus in Night Music.
I want to see him try and do Bernadette Peters doing Sally in FOLLIES. It would really show his versatility as an actor.
"You can't overrate Bernadette Peters. She is such a genius. There's a moment in "Too Many Mornings" and Bernadette doing 'I wore green the last time' - It's a voice that is just already given up - it is so sorrowful. Tragic. You can see from that moment the show is going to be headed into such dark territory and it hinges on this tiny throwaway moment of the voice." - Ben Brantley (2022)
"Bernadette's whole, stunning performance [as Rose in Gypsy] galvanized the actors capable of letting loose with her. Bernadette's Rose did take its rightful place, but too late, and unseen by too many who should have seen it" Arthur Laurents (2009)
"Sondheim's own favorite star performances? [Bernadette] Peters in ''Sunday in the Park,'' Lansbury in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy.'' Nytimes, 2000