Talking with Actor/Director Jason Danieley on Bringing Today's Broadway to the Boston Pops This Week

Jason Danieley made an auspicious Broadway debut when he was picked by Harold Prince to star in a revival of Leonard Bernstein's "Candide" in 1997. In the New York Times, Ben Brantley wrote that Danieley made an "enchanting, honey-voiced" Candide; and Prince told the paper that it is "unusual in the world of musical theater to find someone who can sing as well as he can act." With his boyish, leading man looks he went on to appear in the initial productions of "The Full Monty" and "Curtains," and, more recently, "Pretty Woman" and "The Visit." He has appeared in televised tributes to Sondheim and Kander and Ebb, and starred with his late wife Marin Mazzie as the first replacements in the Broadway production of "Next to Normal."

But it was a year before "Candide" that he worked on a musical that featured a score by composer/lyricist Adam Guettel, who is considered a leading voice in the post-Sondheim generation of Broadway talent. That off-Broadway show was "Floyd Collins," in which Danieley played the brother of the titular character, doomed when trapped in a cave. This week, nearly 30 years later, Danieley has curated and directs a concert with the Boston Pops entitled "Broadway Today! Broadway's Modern Masters" that showcases the work of the composers and lyricists, like Guettel, whose works have appeared on Broadway since the turn of the century. His criteria? Whether the show or the score won a Tony Award.

Writing and directing is the latest phase of Danieley's career, most recently with two acclaimed concerts with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops – "Remembering Stephen Sondheim" in 2022, and a new concert version of "Ragtime" in 2023. Like its two predecessors, this week's concert features a glittering array of Tony Award-winning talent: Victoria Clark, Mandy Gonzalez, Joshua Henry, Darius de Haas, Bryce Pinkham, and Scarlett Strallan, who have each appeared in the shows featured in the concert.

EDGE spoke to Danieley about directing, the concert, and his late wife Marin Mazzie, whose story-book romance was cut short by her death from cancer in 2018.

EDGE: You have a long relationship with the Pops, first as a performer and now as a director. Last year you did a spectacular job with the concert staging of "Ragtime." How did directing happen for you?

Jason Danieley: A little bit by a little bit over the years. I had been directing concerts that my late wife, Marin, and I were doing. Then in 2018, I did a Lyrics and Lyricists show at the 92nd Street Y of Lynn Ahren's lyrics. So that was my sort of New York debut.

EDGE: Do you curate the programs as well as direct them?

Jason Danieley: Yes, this one in particular, for better, for worse. Hopefully, for better.

EDGE: The show offers a look at Broadway in the Post-Sondheim era. How did you choose the shows and songs you are highlighting?

Jason Danieley: It is quite a challenge. When Keith Lockhart and the orchestra approached me last year shortly after "Ragtime," they were looking to do something out of the box for the Pops, and that was to spotlight contemporary Broadway composers. As it turns out, a lot of these composers that we're spotlighting I've worked with over the years. It started with Keith saying, "Who are the writers that have come since Stephen Sondheim? Who writes complex melodies, harmonic structures, et cetera, that follow in his tradition?" He mentioned Adam Guettel, because "A Light in the Piazza" was on his radar. I said I had an idea of how to put this together. So, going back to 2000, my MO was to focus on shows that won the Tony Award for Best Musical and or for Best Score. All of these shows have either won Best Score or Best Musical, or both. And there are two Pulitzer Prize winners as well. That helped narrow it down. And then, from all the shows, what songs do I do choose? And what I also wanted to do is focus on giving the audience a more comprehensive idea of these composers' and lyricists' work, so we present multiple songs from their work that gives a better idea of their writing styles.