{"id":8167,"date":"2023-06-09T12:34:34","date_gmt":"2023-06-09T12:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.charmed-online.nl\/?p=8167"},"modified":"2023-06-09T12:35:08","modified_gmt":"2023-06-09T12:35:08","slug":"jordan-donica-tony-award-nominee-for-camelot-is-broadways-rising-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.charmed-online.nl\/?p=8167","title":{"rendered":"Jordan Donica, Tony Award nominee for ‘Camelot,’ is Broadway’s rising star"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Jordan Donica was about 9 or 10, his aunt took him to New York City with a mission: Get the notion of making it on Broadway out of his system. Thankfully, that mission failed spectacularly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was raining and I was dancing through the streets of Times Square, loving every second of it. My aunt had to tell me to slow down,\u201d he recalls, now happily a New Yorker. \u201cThe thing that I love the most is here, at its height \u2014 the core where everything explodes out from.\u201d<\/p>\n

With determination and talent, Donica still hasn’t slowed down, earning his first Tony Award nomination for playing the hunky, gallant knight Sir Lancelot in a gorgeous Lincoln Center Theater revival of the classic musical \u201cCamelot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just thankful and it just makes me want to do the work even more. Really. That was the first thought I had was, \u2018I\u2019m excited to get back to work,\u2019\u201d he says.
\n<\/p>\n

Donica’s story is of a man with a huge voice who moved a lot in his youth but always had Broadway as his North Star. He would tell friends as early as middle school that he knew what he was going to do with his life. His first email address had the words \u201cBroadway Bound\u201d in it.<\/p>\n

A 2016 graduate of Otterbein University, Donica sharpened his craft in regional theater, playing Jesus in \u201cJesus Christ Superstar\u201d at the Weathervane Playhouse in Ohio and was in the ensemble in \u201cSouth Pacific\u201d at the Utah Shakespeare Festival.<\/p>\n

He made his Broadway debut in 2016 as Raoul in \u201cThe Phantom of the Opera,\u201d coming full-circle. He had been in the audience as a kid during that New York visit, mesmerized by the skill of the Phantom. \u201cI was like, \u2018I need to learn how to use my voice the way that man is using his voice.\u2019 And I set out to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donica has had roles on TV’s \u201cCharmed\u201d and \u201cBlue Bloods\u201d and also starred as Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in the Los Angeles and San Francisco companies of the musical “Hamilton.” He originated the role of Freddy Eynsford-Hill in the 2018 Lincoln Center Theater revival of \u201cMy Fair Lady.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the lavish, sweeping \u201cCamelot,\u201d he plays a virtuous if egotistical knight who is in a love triangle with King Arthur and Guenevere. The story has been updated by Aaron Sorkin to focus on the dream of democracy, but the songs by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe remain.<\/p>\n

Tony-winning director Bartlett Sher hired Donica for both \u201cMy Fair Lady\u201d and \u201cCamelot,\u201d roles that required the actor to be ardent and sweet in the first and a brash, sword-catching hunk in the second.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have a wonderful artist on your hands who\u2019s capable of immersing themselves in a part and in a world and delivering very different things in both cases,\u201d says Sher. \u201cThere\u2019s that kind of connection in his body, relationship to his voice, deep intelligence and endless creativity that makes him so special.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donica in \u201cCamelot\u201d first appears on stage almost like a righteous angel \u2014 singing \u201cC\u2019est Moi\u201d with the lyrics \u201cHere I stand as pure as a prayer\/Incredibly clean with virtue to spare\u201d \u2014 but ends the musical very human, what he describes as a sobering and yet fun journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cCamelot, to me, is America. And we have to fight every day to tell the stories of what freedom is and what America is. Because if we don\u2019t speak about it and put it into existence, it doesn\u2019t actually exist,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The role is vocally and physically demanding. He gained 15 pounds beforehand, anticipating he’d sweat much of it away. He recently visited his physical therapist, who instantly knew Donica had lost weight because the settings on the table didn’t fit him anymore.<\/p>\n

Born in Minnesota, Donica spent his first birthday in Chicago, then moved to Tennessee for eight years and then on to Indiana. He would watch Kidz Bop and TV commercials with singing kids \u2014 Oscar Mayer hot dogs and Welch’s juice ads \u2014 and wonder if that was a path.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember being a little kid and just like seeing the kids on those commercials and turning to my mom being like, \u2018I could do that. Why don\u2019t I do that?\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t think she really thought I was being that serious. But, in my mind, I was very serious.\u201d<\/p>\n

He joined a community theater in Indianapolis and attended theater camp, where there was once a team-building trust fall activity and Donica was the only one willing to commit and fall backward into a stranger’s arms.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember the teacher going like, \u2018You\u2019re going to do well in this because you trust,\u2019\u201d he recalls. \u201cTheater world is a safe place. I\u2019ve been taught to trust, meaning you\u2019re going to be put in a dangerous situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trip to New York was a test for a boy who loved wide-open fields and wasn’t fond of crowds. His mom didn’t want to dissuade him, just wanted to make sure he really wanted it. Now she’s been invited to see him at the Tony Awards.<\/p>\n

On June 11, he faces-off for best performance by an actor in a featured role in a musical against Kevin Cahoon and Alex Newell of \u201cShucked,\u201d Justin Cooley from \u201cKimberly Akimbo\u201d and Kevin Del Aguila of \u201cSome Like It Hot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donica, who used to watch old Tony ceremonies on YouTube, still can’t comprehend he’ll be attending. \u201cI don\u2019t think I still really believe it because I never really set out to win a Tony Award or anything like that. All I ever dreamed about as a kid was performing at the Tonys.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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