Ethan Slater – Fosse/Verdon

By starrymag | April 16, 2019

By: Jamie Steinberg

 

 

Q) What are the recent projects that you are working on?

A) The main thing I’ve been working on is my writing. I’m a writer as well and I’ve got a musical in development that we’re in the process of making happen. I’ve got a couple of films that are in development, as well as a TV series. So, it’s been a really great opportunity. Not performing eight shows a week has given me the time to devote the energy to get those things of the ground. I’m excited to take them from development stages to production stages. That has been pretty fun. Then, I’ve been doing these little TV gigs here and there, which has also been really great.

Q) What was your audition like for “Fosse/Verdon?”

A) I got an email from my agent that they wanted to see me to play Joel Grey. They were going out to a handful of people. I was actually in the DC area. I was at home for the weekend when I got this and they were sort of like, “We sort of need this.” So, I was in my dad’s bedroom and I set up a camera and I tapped myself – like I’m sure I did at some point in high school – doing sides and singing “Wilkomme” and “Two Ladies” just wearing a bowtie. Then, I sent it in and got to go in for the team and do a nice little one session with them after that. It was a very fun experience going back to the roots of why I love doing musicals and why I love theater. Just being in my childhood home singing songs I’d been listening to my entire youth. That was a pretty fun little way in. It made it feel even more meant to be.

Q) Was there something in particular you studied to get into character?

A) I rewatched the movie Cabaret and that’s about it. I wanted to be able to be as precise as they wanted and have the freedom where they didn’t.

Q) What was it like slipping into character?

A) Doing the makeup and the costumes to be the MC was pretty amazing. It was really wild. It was hours in the chair, but once it happened it happened and it was really, really cool. I think with any show there is the work you do beforehand in the rehearsal room or at home preparing and then as soon as you get the other pieces (the design that had been thought of by other people) it became this collaborative performance where you look at yourself in the mirror and you barely recognize yourself, or something like that. It does change the way you walk. So, I always love that part of the process when the work that you’ve done gets to be synthesized with the work the other creatives have done.

Q) What kind of prep for dance and voice work did you do for the role?

A) It was working with Andy Blankenbuehler and he was doing the choreography for the Cabaret So, it was definitely working with him and trying to get as specific as possible in the days leading up to shooting. We had rehearsals for it, which was great. Then, when we were working on the singing and performing in that regard it was working with Alex Lacamoire, which was awesome. It is always that fine line – you want to be recognizably similar to the voice that you’re portraying. You want to do justice to the character within the character, but you also want the freedom to be expressive and inhabit the role yourself. So, he was really good at finding that balance of making it sound like Joel Grey, but without the internal elements of it. So, again, it was another collaborative process, which is always fun.

Q) What was the most challenging part of your portrayal?

A) Hmm. That’s a good question. I think just the stakes of trying to portray something so formative for so many people and recognizable. I think the stakes of it was a little nerve-wracking. I will say, of course it was a challenge and work, but I felt very comfortable doing what I was doing. It was fun!

Q) Talk about working with Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams.

A) They were amazing to watch! They are so good in their roles. Just getting to see them work was incredible. I could have sat for years just seeing them do their thing. There is something really spectacular about seeing the people you admire in person. I can’t and I hope I never do get over it.

Q) What did you personally take away from working on the show?

A) I just had a wonderful time and it’s a story that’s so exciting that it’s cool to be a small part of it. I guess my take away is that I’m excited to see the whole thing and what it is like put together. It’s going to be a really spectacular show and I just feel really thankful that they brought me on board to play this little part.

Q) What were some of your most memorable or most surreal moments from filming?

A) I think the thing that I won’t forget is just sitting in the makeup chair next to Sam and Michelle and hearing them talk about a scene they were going to do. I was in my first twenty minutes of getting my hair and makeup done and it took about four hours. So, they were finishing up and about to go do scene when I was just starting the day. And I got to sort of just hear them talk casually and see how good they were as people backstage in addition to being such great performers in front of the camera. That was a great moment. That was my first day on set and I was just like, “I’m not going to forget this experience. This is so cool and it feels really unique.” I think that’s something indelible for me. On top of that walking in on the first day on to the stage on set and seeing that they built out the Kit Kat Club and they built out these unbelievable sets that just look incredible.

Q) What do you then hope viewers take away from watching this show about these iconic performers?

A) I’m not totally sure how to answer that. I guess I hope they get a sense of behind the scenes of the people that make it happen in all of their flawed glory. [laughs] It’s a really intense process to become the people you admire. That’s a hard question for me to answer from my position, but it’s just going to be a really entertaining look into the people that are so influential in creating musical theatre and film the way we know it today.

Q) What have been some of your favorite projects to have worked on in your career?

A) I would say my high school production of The Producers left an indelible mark on anyone who ever saw it. [laughs] Which was fifty people! That’s really hard. Each project that I’ve gotten to work on has been really wonderful for different reasons, whether it is the people who I’m still friends with who have become a big part of my life because of an off Broadway show that I did or the experience of SpongeBob, which was not only making some of my closet friends working on something that I got to see the process from the ground up. I think it’s impossible to say that anything has been as important in my life as the process of SpongeBob was – the six years of development and seeing what it takes to build a show from the ground up. And to take an entity and treat with such love and care and respect and also do something totally new with it – I’ll never forget that experience and each step of the way. I feel really lucky though to be involved in a number of things that pinching myself the entire time. I really hope there is more of it. I think there will be, but who knows?

Q) You starred as the titular role in SpongeBob SquarePants on Broadway! Did you keep any mementos?

A) Oh my goodness! I do still have my shoes. I have these amazing custom Fluevog shoes that LaDuca made. I have them and I’m not sure when I’m going to wear them, but I have these amazing dance boots that are, for me, the perfect relic of the Sponge Bob costume and immediately reminds you of what the vibe was like – indie and sort of hip cool stripped-down SpongeBob who wore Fluevog. I’ve got a little bit of The Palace Theatre, which was given as a gift from one of the most incredible stagehands at The Palace. He gave them to me and a couple of my castmates – Danny Skinner and Lily Cooper – a piece of the foundation of The Palace Theatre, which they are now renovating. We got to be the last show to play The Palace as it was meant to be played. I feel very attached to that. It’s on my mantle and it’s one of my most prized possessions.

Q) You were nominated for a Tony for your role. What did that mean to you?

A) It was totally surreal! It’s one of those hard things to talk about because I was so proud of the show that we had made. I was really proud of my work in SB and what I had been able to do with my collaborators. But then getting nominated for an award like that, you hope that it doesn’t mean that much but then when it happens it really does. I’ve been watching The Tonys and following The Tonys and Broadway my entire life. So, to be part of that legacy now and history and have that sort of attached to my name is a really special thing. Whenever someone mentions it, I sort of am still surprised by it. It’s a really cool thing. At the same time, you like to think that awards are things that don’t matter and I still think that’s true, but it is a nice perk.

Q) You are a writer, performer, actor, composer and director. How do you balance doing all of these at once?

A) [laughs] That is a question I’m still trying to answer. The main way that I think about it is that it’s my job to write every day. I just finished doing this gala performance of Camelot and I had to be in rehearsal every day. So, I’d write two hours each day and then go to rehearsal. If I have a day free, I’m writing for eight hours and making sure that I’m constantly working on that stuff. I like to think that my day job is to write and the gravy is to get help other people bring their visions forward and work as an actor, which is something I really love to do. That is, I think, the mindset that I’ve taken to each day. I hope that it works, but it’s a sort of a constant give and take trying to balance the different projects.

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of the work you do?

A) I would like to say thank you, first of all. Thanks for following along and being interested in the work that I’m doing and the work my friends and I are doing. I’ve got some exciting new stuff coming your way soon.