Interview: Edward Staudenmayer of THE GREAT GATSBY at BROADWAY AT THE HOBBY CENTER

THE GREAT GATSBY musical is coming to the Hobby Center March 3rd through the 8th as part of the Broadway at the Hobby Center series, and Edward Staudenmayer will be playing Meyer Wolfsheim, a shady cohort of Jay Gatsby. Edward is an international star of the stage, who has been seen in productions such as JANE EYRE, CATS, MISS SAIGON, GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY, and THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL. BROADWAY WORLD writer Brett Cullum got a chance to sit down with Edward to talk all things GATSBY. 

Brett Cullum: First up, you did this role in South Korea? How did that happen?

Edward Staudenmayer: It came across, and I auditioned for it, and I got it, and I got a chance to live in Korea for four months, and it was one of the most life-changing experiences of my life. I just loved it. I don't think Korea was really high on my radar of places I wanted to go to. And I absolutely loved it. I made some of the most amazing friends that I'll have for a lifetime. I'm dying to go back. My skin looks amazing.

Brett Cullum: Thanks to all the beauty products. They lead the world in that! I get all my skincare from Korea! 

Edward Staudenmayer: Yes, I've lost 10 years! Great experience. The audience loved it. Our producer [Chunsoo Shin] is Korean, and he had this big hit on Broadway, and he wanted to bring it to his home country, and it was great, and they treated us like royalty, and it was just a great experience. I loved it so much.

Brett Cullum: Tell me a little bit about this show. What can we expect? I mean, THE GREAT GATSBY, good gosh! Everybody's read the book. You have to have seen at least one of the movies. This thing is American literature! Come on!

Edward Staudenmayer: Or we find out in the show those kids who haven't finished the book when they're there with their teachers. We have a lot of student groups that come, and when they start reacting crazy to what happens, the teachers go, “Hmm, maybe you didn't read this book.”

Everybody knows it's great. What we deliver is that you really get your money's worth. That's what I thought when I first saw it on Broadway. It was like, my God, is this gorgeous, a spectacle, a big Broadway musical we haven't seen in a while, and it's just stunning visually. The design is so beautiful. I'm wearing the most beautiful costumes of Linda Cho. She won a Tony Award for it! I mean, it's just stunningly beautiful. And it's this great story. We give you the party, you know? It's Gatsby's wild parties, and then you get involved with these characters, and then the tragedy unfolds, and it's a wonderful night of musical theater, because you get the party, the excitement, and then you also get the feelings.

Brett Cullum: Did you have a connection to Gatsby before being cast? Is it something that you read?

Edward Staudenmayer: It was the first novel you got in the ninth grade. It was my first book, and it was short. It was also the first adult book I read. It was, like, sex, and bootlegging, and all these things! I've suddenly felt, “Oh, I'm, like, a grown-up,” and I remember just loving the novel when I was younger.

Brett Cullum: It's always been one of my favorite books, and I feel really trite saying that, because a lot of people say that. As a critic, I always want to have this more esoteric answer or something. But why do you think that we're all so obsessed with THE GREAT GATSBY, with this narrative?

Edward Staudenmayer: I don't know! Like I said, I read it when I was young, and it made me feel suddenly sophisticated and grown up, and F. Scott Fitzgerald's language is so beautiful. He just writes the most glorious sentences, and so many of them are quoted in our show. They make for great lyrics and just great lines to say, so I think people just recognize them all, and they're so beautiful. They're artistic and gorgeous. It's very interesting in our production because our writer, Kait Kerrigan, opens it up. The book is set solely from Nick, the narrator's, perspective; he narrates and describes everything, but there are scenes where he's not in them, and it's from the woman's perspective, giving you a glimpse into Daisy's and Jordan's characters. Everybody has a reason for behaving the way they do. This was the way the times were. These women were forced to behave this way. Daisy would lose her child; she would lose her status if she ran off with Gatsby, and so it sheds some light on what the reality was for people in those times.

I'm really excited to bring this all across the country. I think that it will really speak to people. I think our cast is so good. Our Nick Carraway, Joshua Grosso, is so, so good at telling the story, being our narrator, and having opinions about all these people. It's a beautiful performance, and I'm so proud of this production. I can't wait to bring it everywhere.

Brett Cullum: Now, I noticed your bio. It says that you are a recipient of the Carol Burnett Award. What is that?

Edward Staudenmayer: Carol Burnett went to UCLA, where I went, and we would have a competition, the Carol Burnett Awards, every year. We had five minutes on stage to present something, and so I did a mishmash of songs. She used to come and judge it, and she offered a scholarship, which I won, and I took that money and spent it on singing lessons. I had many weeks of free singing lessons thanks to Carol Burnett. I've met her many times, and I thank her so much for giving me that. But it's a prestigious award, and it really only matters to people who went to UCLA.

Brett Cullum: How did you get into acting? What sparked this bug in little Edward?

Edward Staudenmayer: I got cast in THE MUSIC MAN in high school, and as Tommy Djilas, and I just fell in love with it. I could probably say every line in that play, I know it, forward and backwards. I also played football. My dad was a football coach and semi-pro player, and I did football in the fall. I was doing both, and then, finally, in my senior year, I quit football to be in the fall play, which won this big competition. We gotta bring it to Los Angeles to perform it. Dorothy Chandler offered a Spotlight Awards, and we got all the way to the finals of that to perform at the Dorothy Chandler stage, and so I got a scholarship from that. That helped me get into UCLA, and then I went into theater there. I just kept going. Right away, I was cast in the Hamburg, Germany, production of Cats. My name was Staudenmeyer, so they thought that I'd fit right in, so I went out there. I had to learn to do the show in German. I've been doing theatre ever since.