Actors with South Florida roots taking the lead in Broadway shows.
By Jack Zink
Theater Writer
May 22, 2005
One flies and the other flies off the handle in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, musical theater's latest big-budget confection. But offstage, Raul Esparza and Marc Kudisch are definitely grounded.
Esparza gets above-the-title billing in the lead role of Caractacus Potts, inventor of the magical car with wings. Kudisch gets "also starring" credit as the wacky character of Baron Bomburst, a performance that nabbed him a second Tony Award nomination.
The two men, who grew up just a few miles from one another in Fort Lauderdale and Plantation, are part of a small group of actors emerging from Broadway's ranks as theater's first starring class in the 21st century.
When Chitty Chitty Bang Bang opened in late April, Newsday theater critic Linda Winer praised "the supremely overqualified cast, including the intensely talented Raul Esparza." She also cited Kudisch's bad-boy baron, along with Jan Maxwell, his baroness, as "best of all, at least for us on the dark side."
"It's a real blessing but also a great thing where Broadway is a place now where someone can come up through the theater, and be someone who can carry a show or open a show," Esparza says. "I love being here, doing the kinds of plays I've done. I pinch myself."
Kudisch is both bemused and sanguine about his Broadway credits and Chitty in particular. Though he co-starred with Bernadette Peters in the 2001 revival of Bells Are Ringing, he prides himself on being a character actor. Both of his Tony nominations -- the other was for Thoroughly Modern Millie in 2002 -- are as best featured actor.
"I don't even think about the lead. Characters are characters are characters," says Kudisch. "And this new generation of actor-singers is coming from dramatic material. They're not just singer-dancers; they have the acting chops."
Joining the A-list
Kudisch was nominated for a Helen Hayes Award as best actor this spring for portraying Vincent Van Gogh in The Highest Yellow at Washington, D.C.'s Signature Theatre. Last year, he played the Proprietor in the Stephen Sondheim's critically hailed Assassins on Broadway.
Esparza, an Obie Award winner for the musical Tick, Tick, Boom, was to appear in a 2001 production of Assassins (in another role) that was canceled in the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Instead, he made a splash as the emcee in Cabaret. Last year, Esparza starred off-Broadway in a revival of the AIDS drama The Normal Heart and on Broadway in Taboo as the bizarre Philip Salon, for which he was nominated for a featured-actor Tony.
The duo's female co-stars in Chitty are both nominated for Tony Awards. Maxwell, up as featured actress, is coming off award-winning performances in Sixteen Wounded and The Dinner Party. Leading lady Erin Dilly, nominated for best actress, was Cinderella in the revival of Sondheim's dark fairy tale Into the Woods.
Others journeymen moving to the forefront include Norbert Leo Butz, Sherie Rene Scott and Joanna Gleason, all Tony-nominated in the musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Sutton Foster, following her smash debut in Thoroughly Modern Millie, is now top-billed in Little Women, which closes today.
Gary Beach opened the revival of La Cage Aux Folles this season as a leading man, after a decade-long rise into the advanced class, from Beauty and the Beast (Tony nomination) through The Producers (Tony for featured actor).
Hollywood invasion
Broadway has been a platform for stardom for more than a century, but in recent decades the bulk of celebrity traffic has emanated from film and TV. This season is no exception: Denzel Washington stars in Julius Caesar, James Earl Jones and Leslie Uggams in On Golden Pond, Jeff Goldblum in The Pillowman, Alan Alda in Glengarry Glen Ross, Delta Burke in Steel Magnolias, plus Jessica Lange (The Glass Menagerie), Kathleen Turner (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) and Robert Goulet (La Cage Aux Folles).
While there's no doubt Times Square enjoys their cachet, such celebrity casting reduces opportunities for stage actors to move up, especially in plays. Performers like Esparza, 34, and Kudisch, 38, are using their musical talents to push their careers into the spotlight.
"It still happens that they cast movie and TV stars and it doesn't mean they won't be great," Esparza says. "Maybe they will be, but I think it's wonderful that Broadway is beginning to take care of its own."
Even so, roles like King Arthur in Camelot remain celebrity vehicles, says Kudisch, who sees it as one of a dwindling supply of choice showcases for a classic baritone voice like his.
"Meaning no disrespect, there are some wonderful people playing those roles," Kudisch says. "But when you're trained for the stage, really trained, you can tell the difference between people trained knowing they're going to have a microphone on their head, and those who are not.
"Hit the back wall with your voice, man. That's the way I was trained. That's what we did at Florida Atlantic University."
Florida roots
Although Kudisch and Esparza have been aware of each others' careers and have mutual friends from South Florida, their work has kept them in separate orbits. Even in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, although each has a similar amount of stage time, they're seldom on stage together.
Kudisch grew up in Plantation and acted briefly at South Florida theaters before and after his graduation in the '80s, but soon began plying his career in New York and on tour, the latter in the title role of Bye Bye Birdie. He later did the ABC made-for-TV version.
Esparza's parents fled Cuba and settled in Wilmington, Del., where he was born. They moved to Fort Lauderdale, where he spent his early childhood, and then to Miami while he was in junior high school.
Except for school plays and a small role in Mixed Blessings at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, he didn't act until he left the area. Esparza first moved to New York, then to Chicago.
"I spent nine years in Chicago before I set foot back in New York because I just didn't think I'd be ready to do what was needed to compete here," he says.
Jack Zink can be reached at jzink@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4706.
