Interview
Fresh Face: Jon Robyns by Matt Wolf
Taken from Broadway in London - 15|8|06
Age: 23
Currently:
Playing Princeton and Rod in the West End debut of Avenue Q, inheriting parts originated on Broadway by Tony nominee John Tartaglia. "It's so funny," Robyns says of the Broadway Tony winner: "When I saw it in New York, I came out of the theatre with my friend and said, `That will never go in Britain; it's far too American.' So I'm gobsmacked that they've managed to bring it over here and do it so well and that it totally breathes as an understandable piece of British theatre. The general public is going to lap it up—hopefully."
Hometown:
Liverpool, "though I moved around a lot when I was a kid," which proved useful when Robyns began his professional career in the UK tour of Miss Saigon, understudying and playing Chris. "It was just family ciercumstance that I got to see a lot of the country before I started touring. Both my parents were teachers - my dad still is - and dad in his sweet way to try and be involved would liken teaching to acting, and I'd seen him teach, so I thought, why not?" Robyns has an older brother, Daniel, who works for Microsoft and lives in Reading. "There's not a big history of performing in our family, though everyone has done bits and pieces."
New York News:
Robyns took his first trip to Broadway in January 2005. “I saw Avenue Q and also Brooklyn next door. I wanted to see Wicked but it was sold out for the whole week, and I couldn't budget for $120, but now it's coming over here and we're looking forward to having it." As for Avenue Q? "I had already become hooked on it before I knew it was coming to Britain. When I saw it, I thought, if this comes over I'm definitely auditioning for it. So it's a freaky coincidence that I happen to be involved in it—a joyful coincidence, obviously."
Three Times Lucky:
He attended Mountview in north London, graduating in 2004 from the drama college's three-year course in musical theatre. "I played Sweeney in Sweeney Todd, which was obviously a stretch for a 21 year old to play a 50-year-old mass murderer, but any opportunity to do Sondheim you take. I also did The Hot Mikado, which was fun for the dancing, and Sweet Charity." Since graduating, Robyns has just done three shows—nearly 18 months on the road in Miss Saigon; six months in Frankfort in an English-language Rent in a 300-plus seater ("we didn't have any matinees, which was a godsend, really"); and now Avenue Q. "I've been really lucky: the right jobs have just happened to come along at the right time. I've managed to leave one and have another."
Try and Try Again:
It took a first audition and eight callbacks for Robyns to land Avenue Q's starring role—or roles—which in turn require his services as actor, singer and puppeteer. "The first one was just, turn up and sing, `Thank you very much, Jon,' and go away; the next one they sent the material over. At that one they threw a puppet at me and said, ‘Here you go; see what you can do.' It was nervewracking, though I suppose they had to do it at some point. There were then two-to-three workshops teaching us how to use the puppets and to manipulate them in a way that would best show off the material, and then there were a few more just to be sure. For the last audition, I was working in Germany, playing Mark in Rent, so I had to fly back at 3 am;[Laughs.] I was the only person not in a suit. They saw so many people, and I feel so lucky and so privileged to be doing it. They told me a day after my birthday, which is in December, and my first audition was in September, so it was a long process. And a nice belated birthday present."
If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It:
"Rod is still an investment banker, and Princeton is the character who needed to stay as central and as still as possible because it's his kind of story and throughline, his discovery, so we've been at pains to try to keep him as stationary as possible." Albeit while learning a whole new Jon Robyns (and Rod) in Avenue Q talent? "Absolutely. This has been a proper rub-your-stomach-and-pat-your-head exercise for most of it. Learning a totally new skill has been amazing, but really, really difficult; it's like doing a dance routine for the whole show. It took some setting in place to get the puppeteering right and make that believable and real and then we had to layer on all the character stuff that we would have had to do if we didn't have the puppets. It's really splitting your brain into two halves, so it becomes a muscle memory to some extent: you build the muscles that go with keeping your arm up for two-and-a-half hours."
Training Day:
Still, it must have required a certain discipline to get the puppeteering right. Puppetmaster Peter Linz, from the original New York company, crossed the Atlantic to give the London cast what Robyns calls "a week's puppet's boot camp. before rehearsals proper started. They gave us an elastic ball with ping pong balls to practise in the mirror, to do with getting the focus of the eyes right. Eye contact is a big deal with these, so getting the focus is half the battle." How does it feel now? "There are times when you feel as if you're banging your head against a brick wall though, like any field, if you work at it hard enough, it eventually comes." [Laughs.] "But there are still times when we get a bit frustrated and your hand doesn't do what your brain tells it to."
His Colleagues' Report:
Why settle for Robyns' own self-assessment, when the creative team can proffer its own remarks? "We probably auditioned nearly 700 people," says Avenue Q director Jason Moore, "and Jon was one of those people who had a natural ability and ease about him and then he puts that puppet on, really, he can do just about anything. He's just fantastic; I'm absolutely thrilled." Says the musical's Christmas Eve, Ann Harada, who is the only member of the London cast to be repeating her New York gig: "Jon is a very open-hearted person, just as Johnny T. [John Tartaglia] was, with the same kind of very positive spirit and wide-eyed naivete." [Laughs.] "All the cast are new to me, of course, and they all seem extremely young."
Translations:
"Britain is so saturated and bombarded with American culture," notes Robyns, "that it makes it very easy to slip into that American mindset. We get all the sitcoms, all the cartoons, and I watch CNN a lot, so I'm thinking our show will play pretty well; we're very used to American theatre. And they've gone to great lengths to make it as accessible as possible. We've also had a very long preview period, so there's been a real suck-it-and-see mentality behind the show: play it, see how it works and adjust it. Everyone's really open and willing to make it work, rather than just turning up with a product and saying, Here it is. It's so exciting that the West End is being really revitalised by all these American transfers from Broadway; it's given it a new lease of life, really."