Interview: Will Savarese of FROZEN at Orpheum Theater

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to BroadwayWorld in Omaha today!

Of course!

How did you discover your interest in the performing arts?

You know, I feel like I was a little late to the game compared to a lot of my castmates. A lot of them have been doing this practically since they were born, and I sort of fell into it towards the end of high school. I thought I wanted to be a filmmaker initially. My friends and I would make YouTube comedy sketches and stuff, and I sort of figured out through that, that I liked being in them and making characters that I could play. I thought at first I just wanted to be in movies, but my sister had done theater her whole life and she was playing the Broadway cast recording of Aladdin in the car one day and I sort of fell in love with that. I ended up going to see it and started listening to a bunch of other musical theatre albums and thought I would give it a try. Around the time that I graduated high school I did my first musical and I fell in love with it and I've been doing it ever since.

Can you tell me a little about your path from recreational/education to professional theatre?

That first show I did at the end of high school was Children of Eden, which is a Biblical musical written by Stephen Schwartz, who also did Wicked. It was a great experience! And then I took a gap year between high school and college. I ended up doing four different shows that year in my local community theaters. During that time I also auditioned for colleges and I was able to get into Baldwin Wallace, which has a really nationally renowned musical theatre program. I had gotten into the acting program. I wanted to get an acting based training and it was a new program. I think my year was only the second official year of this program. So I trained there and did mostly plays in college. Over the summer I did a musical before my sophomore year. I did Newsies. I'm a big Disney and Alan Menken guy. And even though I was mostly working on plays in college, I was also working on singing. My senior year I was lucky enough to get cast in the national tour of Hairspray, and I left school my senior year to go do that. And then I was lucky again to get this opportunity right after that. I graduated in May and started this in September, and I've been doing it ever since.

Was there an instructor or moment in your education that really impacted your career trajectory to get you where you are today?

I was actually just thinking about this today! I would say that all the teachers at Baldwin Wallace were influential. Also, just having the Internet was great cause I could just look up pretty much anything I needed and watch all of the actors I looked up to, including their interviews and acting tips. But there was one teacher at Baldwin Wallace who I think probably had the biggest impact on me overall, and her name is Laura Welsh Berg. She was one of the acting professors, and everyone valued her so much. She was so practical about acting in the business. I think I probably learned the most from her.

This is your second national tour! What would you say is is your favorite part of being on the road?

Oooo! When I was on the Hairspray tour I was still doing schoolwork and I couldn't really do stuff outside the show too much. We also had more one to three night stays, so we weren't in cities for too long. But with Frozen our shortest days are typically two weeks. We get two weeks in each city, if not longer. So I would say, especially this time around, it has to be getting to travel to new places and new theaters. It's great having new audiences and getting to meet new people and having all of these experiences. I was trying to think the other day of how many states I've been in now! I think that I am so lucky to get to do that. Getting to explore the country and tour with this show is pretty great!

For fans of the movie who are planning to come see the show in Omaha... Are there any major differences, or is the story intact? What can those fans of this story expect to experience next week?

The story is pretty intact from the movie. It's the story of the first film, but there are (I believe) 12 new songs written by the same composers who wrote the songs from the film. My character, Hans, is given sort of a larger arc and a couple new songs. If you were a fan of the movie the musical definitely does it justice, but there are a lot of new added elements to make keep surprising audiences. It's a kid show but there's plenty for adults to enjoy, too. I think it's just fun for the whole family.

What is your personal favorite part of the show, either onstage or offstage.

I would say onstage my favorite part is probably "Love is an Open Door." It's just a fun number that I really enjoy. At heart, I think I am best at the silly and goofy stuff, and that is pretty much that whole number. In general I would have to say my favorite part is the finale. I'm the only performer in the cast who gets to watch the finale of the show. I won't tell you why, but I can tell you that I am the only one who gets to watch it from offstage. Every day I get to sit backstage and watch this amazing finale of the show that is just so musically and story wise beautiful. I think that's my favorite number to watch.

Tell me a little about your audition for Frozen.

I was actually on the road with Hairspray while I was auditioning. The first audition was a self-tape and I taped it in one of my hotel rooms. I ended up getting called in while I was on the road and they held the auditions over two days. I flew home and I did a work session with the creative team one day and the next morning I went in and they did a full final callback. I actually felt terrible about how I did. But on the train back to Baltimore, which is where we were Hairspray was playing at that time, I got a call from my agent saying they were signing off on me but that the dance was a little rough. I'm definitely not a dancer naturally. That was a big thing for me in Hairspray. We ended up having an additional final callback to work through the "Love is an Open Door" choreography. So I went back to New York for a day and worked on that and sent them another video of that, and then I got a call from my agent before a show one night while I was backstage getting ready to go on for Hairspray telling me I booked the job. I told my friends backstage I was going to do Frozen. It was a great show!

How did you approach your creation of the Hans Omaha audiences will meet this week?

There is a secret revealed about Hans towards the end of the show, and I think that was the biggest challenge for me. Figuring out how to pull that off was difficult. At first I thought a lot of the work was going to be done during that part in the finale and I wasn't sure how I was going to do this thing that reveals the secret that convinces people that I've had this in my head the whole time, but our director sort of helped show me that in order to achieve that at the end, the work is more important at the beginning of the show. It was important for me to play everything as truthfully as possible. In the beginning of the show I try to play Hans as genuine and truthfully as possible so that the secret that he has has more of an affect at the end.

Any last thoughts for our Omaha readers who might not have pushed that purchase ticket button yet?

I think it's easy to simply view this as a kid show. It is geared towards kids, but there's plenty to enjoy for all ages and all types of people. I promise you will have a good time no matter how old you are.