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.

EDGE: In most cases, the songs had to be reorchestrated for a symphony orchestra...

Jason Danieley: Some of those shows, like "A Light in the Piazza" or "Parade," already had larger orchestrations suitable for the Pops; but then some, like "Kimberly Akimbo" or "A Strange Loop," were written for more pop bands, and we had those re-orchestrated for the larger group of musicians, but still capture the sense of intimacy they originally had.

EDGE: How did you choose the talent?

Jason Danieley: I think right off the bat. Since we were going to do "Piazza" and "Kimberly Akimbo," I asked Victoria Clark, who is an old friend. She had just won her second Tony (for "Kimberly Akimbo"), and I thought a great place to start was to pick a Tony Award winner to sing songs from the two shows for which she won awards. Keith and Dennis wanted "Hamilton," and I've worked with Joshua Henry before. And he's the real deal – an incredible actor and singer. So we just continued down the list of the shows we had chosen. At one point, I thought of Bryce Pinkham, whom I've known for some time, and who was absolutely wonderful in "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder," which is a fantastic musical with a beautiful score. And he was Tony nominated for that. So, I kind of paired actors with shows, and hoped that they were available. And I pretty much got my first choice all around.

EDGE: What has the experience been like so far?

Jason Danieley: Well, because I'm wearing so many hats – I conceived it, programmed it, and cast it – it has been immersive, to say the least. Take finding the right orchestrator, because to have a particular sound, you need a specific kind of orchestration. But what is very important for me personally is to expose audiences, like the great audiences in Boston, to the newer Broadway music, and make it fit with such a big orchestra. That is, to try to figure out exactly what shows would fit with that orchestra. And hopefully, to entertain and enlighten the Boston audience in the process.

EDGE: What do you think of the post-Sondheim musical world?

Jason Danieley: Stephen and his collaborators over the years have set the bar quite high. In those shows, Sondheim not only entertained the audience, but challenged them to think about life and society, and the world they live in. I think the composers and lyricists we are spotlighting really tick off those boxes. They challenge you to think about different things and give you different perspectives that you might not normally hear.

EDGE: Can you talk about your long artistic relationship with Keith Lockhart?

Jason Danieley: Oh, we're old friends. I've been singing with him since 1998 in Boston and on tour in the States. And we've toured the Middle East and the Czech Republic. We've done a lot, a good deal with my late wife, Marin Mazzie. And he's a good friend that, in a very good way, challenges me. We make beautiful music together. And for me, taking the role of collaborator, directing and curating these concerts has been a very fluid, seamless transition.

EDGE: Marin Mazzie, your late wife, was a phenomenal talent. Can you talk about her for a minute?

Jason Danieley: There's so much... Sure. What would you like to know? There's so much... let me begin by saying we met while I was starring in a show that featured music by Adam Guettel – "Floyd Collins" – during its off-Broadway run. One of her best friends was one of my new best friends, Martin Moran, who was in "Floyd," and we were introduced. Then we did a play together, and we fell in love instantly. We started performing together with orchestras, such as the Pops, and in cabarets. And starred in "Next to Normal" on Broadway, and in LA we did "110 in the Shade" and "Brigadoon."

Marin was probably the single most important person to encourage me to go into directing. She appreciated and supported my artistic vision, and gave me the confidence to pursue it. Moving into this next phase of my professional career has been wonderful, because I know the support that she gave me while she was here, that I still continue to feel as I move forward. I feel her presence, especially when I'm in Boston or Tanglewood. I feel her presence very much, particularly last year when we did "Ragtime." It was challenging to hear somebody else singing her role, but also I felt her telling me it is fine, and I am doing what I need to be doing.

EDGE: And you have been acting as well. You were recently in a new Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ehrens musical called "Knoxville..."

Jason Danieley: Yes, I am also still performing. We are doing another regional production in Nashville, Tennessee, later on this summer. But more immediate is a performance I am doing this weekend at Yale for the writing team of Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire for a new revue that they've written. They wrote two very popular revues, "Closer Than Ever" and "Starting Here, Starting Now," that deal with love and romantic relationships, but at different times in people's lives. "Starting Here..." is about young love; "Closer Than Ever" is about love in mid-life; and the new show is looking at life and love as an older person. People in their mid-50s on have a different perspective, and I think Richard and David are writing from their point of view. The Yale production is the first public performance of the piece, and I don't know what's next for it, but it is quite beautiful. And the occasion of the performance is Richard and David's 65th class reunion – can you believe that they've written a revue at this point in their lives? They're in their mid-80s. And "Knoxville," we are going to do another production this summer in Nashville. We first did the piece in 2022 in Florida, at the Asolo Repertory Theatre. It was directed by Frank Galati, who had directed "Ragtime," but he passed away this year. The new production will incorporate changes that Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens have made to the score. It will be directed by Josh Rhodes. ("Knoxville" runs September 4 – 22 at the Clarence Brown Theatre in Nashville.) So I leave from Tanglewood, get in my car, drive my dog to Knoxville, and we start rehearsals on the rewrites that Lynn and Stephen have done on the show. So, I'm very excited about that.

"Broadway Today! Broadway's Modern Masters" will be performed by the Boston Pops and soloists on Thursday, June 6 and Friday, June 7, at 7:30 pm, at Symphony Hall, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, MA. For ticket information, follow this link.

For more on Jason Danieley, visit his website.