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[0:00] Alan Seales: And an incredibly versatile and dynamic Tony Award-nominated performer, this man, sitting beside me, is currently captivating audiences as Jay Gatsby in the Broadway production of The Great Gatsby, known for his powerful vocals and compelling stage presence. This was written by A.I., by the way. Jeremy has established himself as a prominent figure in both theatre and television. Fans are eagerly anticipating the upcoming pro-shot release of Bonnie & Clyde, where he will once again bring his extraordinary talent to the screen in this beloved musical. Jeremy Jordan, welcome back to The Theatre Podcast.

[0:37] Jeremy Jordan: Thank you. Thank you. I am not A.I.

[0:39] Alan Seales: You are not A.I., no.

[0:41] Jeremy Jordan: No, nor is my performance or any performance, hopefully, ever in the future.

[0:44] Alan Seales: No, but you have revisited this whole, this Bonnie & Clyde production. You've done it multiple times.

[0:49] Jeremy Jordan: Well, yeah. I mean, well, I did the show on Broadway back in 2011.

[0:57] Alan Seales: Yeah, 2011-2012.

[0:58] Jeremy Jordan: For a hot minute. And, and that was, and that was it. And then, and then, what was this, two and a half years ago now, at this point, when we did this in London?

[1:08] Alan Seales: 22, yeah.

[1:09] Jeremy Jordan: Yeah, it was wild. Just kind of thrown into the fire. And, oh, yeah. That's what that was.

[1:15] Alan Seales: Has it changed? Has it changed between the two? Like, the West End audiences, are they different? And the production itself, has it, has it evolved?

[1:22] Jeremy Jordan: Yeah, well, I mean, this particular recording is a quote, unquote, concert. Well, whatever they did to my face is A.I., that's for sure. But the performance, it was a concert. So, it wasn't, they did the show on the West End after this.

[1:39] Alan Seales: Right.

[1:40] Jeremy Jordan: But that was a whole other thing. So, it was pretty much all the same stuff. I mean, some of the script maybe was a little bit slightly different, but it was basically as I remembered it. And we just, I just jumped into whatever staging they threw me into. And we just flew by the seat of our pants.

[1:56] Alan Seales: Well, how much rehearsal time did you have for all this then?

[1:58] Jeremy Jordan: I think I had like, five days.

[2:00] Alan Seales: Wow.

[2:01] Jeremy Jordan: Maybe. They had more.

[2:02] Alan Seales: Straight to TV.

[2:03] Jeremy Jordan: Because there were all local people from the UK.

[2:07] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[2:09] Jeremy Jordan: And I flew in for this, like, just under a week before the first performance. And I don't know, like, how much I realized it was going to be like a full thing, but very quickly reoriented my perception and just ran with it.

[2:29] Alan Seales: Well, talk about the perception then, because pro shots generally are multiple cameras over multiple nights, and they edit them all together. And then every now and then, did they do this for you that they'll take a steadicam and do punch-ins for close-ups and stuff?

[2:43] Jeremy Jordan: No, no, they did not. This was, I think it was three performances. Well, we did two performances for an audience, and they also filmed the dress rehearsal.

[2:53] Alan Seales: Interesting.

[2:54] Jeremy Jordan: Slash tech, which was all one thing. I don't know how much of that they used, but no, it was all, there wasn't really anything on the stage to my recollection. If there was, it was like off to the side. But yeah, it wasn't one of those, like, where we took a week to film it. It was like two performances that I'm assuming they spliced together, hopefully, which was wild. And I hadn't thought about this until the second performance that I was like, continuity. I have, I had basically one costume that I had various layers of undressing and dress, like there was a three-piece suit with the undershirt. And so it was like different parts of the show, or sometimes I had my hat. And after the first show, I was like, I don't remember what I did.

Because there was no tech, like there was no rehearsal with costumes. We just like, I just did what I thought I should do. I was like, I guess I'll wear my hat in this scene. I guess I'll roll my sleeves up for this, for this scene. I just made a decision on the, at the moment, like in the, it was wild.

[3:53] Alan Seales: Right. So do you adjust your performances for things when you know they're going to be filmed like that? Are you getting the direction to keep it?

[4:01] Jeremy Jordan: I wasn't really thinking about it being filmed, to be honest with you. There was an audience of like 2000 people at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London, which is one of the biggest houses that they have there. And so, you know, I'm just trying to remember what the hell to say and where to go and, and not mess up. And then occasionally thinking about, the only thing I ever thought about with the, about the camera was the costumes stuff. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to mess this up because I'm going to be wearing a hat in this scene for one shot, and then not wearing the hat in the, in the other performance. And they're just going to have to pick one. So I was more thinking like, oh, I have to be perfect. So if this is the one they pick, there's no splicing back and forth.

[4:42] Alan Seales: Do you have a favorite moment from, from this production that you, that you're excited for everyone to be able to see?

[4:47] Jeremy Jordan: Oh, gosh. I mean, my favorite moment of the show for me is, was, well, there's a bunch of them, but the one that always, that always stays with me is when I sing the song Bonnie, which is like a little solo that I play on the ukulele and I get to feel like a musician while actually doing it. And it's a really sweet song. And it's, it just feels like really grounded in a show that's all very much, very, you know, a lot of running around, a lot of shooting and hooting.

[5:19] Alan Seales: Shoot, shoot, shoot, and shoot. Oh, that's the tagline right there. Bonnie and Clyde shooting and hooting. All right. So something new I've added to my podcast since the last time you were on was a little game called plot in 60 seconds. And that's what we'll,

[5:31] Jeremy Jordan: What is it?

[5:32] Alan Seales: Plot in 60 seconds.

[5:33] Jeremy Jordan: Okay.

[5:34] Alan Seales: So we'll wrap up with that. Give me a number one through three. It'll correspond to a musical you've done. And you have to give me that plot in 60 seconds.

[5:43] Jeremy Jordan: One.

[5:44] Alan Seales: One. Okay. You'll be able to get this one. I got to pull up my, my clock, my stopwatch here. All right. Here's the time that corresponds to Newsies. Go.

[5:52] Jeremy Jordan: Newsies opens with Jack Kelly on a rooftop with, with Crutchie. Basically there, he runs a, with a whole bunch of newsboys around the city. They sell newspapers, but they're getting gypped by Pulitzer and all the big newspaper guys. And so they go on strike so that they can get fair pay. Jack meets Catherine, who's a lovely daughter who happens to actually be spoiler alert, the daughter of Pulitzer, but they, uh, but they still form an alliance and they have to fight the man. And, uh, they sell a bunch of papes. They get thrown in jail for a little bit of time. They break out.

[6:24] Alan Seales: 30 seconds remain.

[6:25] Jeremy Jordan: They sing a lot of songs. There's a lot of dancing. Brooklyn comes and helps them out. Finally, they rally everybody together. There's this massive strike. They overthrow the, the newspaper boys. They get the scabs out of there. Uh, Roosevelt comes and like gives a big speech and they all live happily after. But Jack does not go to Santa Fe.

[6:44] Alan Seales: Eight seconds left.

[6:45] Jeremy Jordan: There you go.

[6:46] Alan Seales: Very impressive. All right. I like that. So everybody, please, uh, go to Bonnie Clyde live, buddyclidelive.com. I had to get that right. And you can pre-order your tickets right now. And this comes out to the world when?

[7:01] Jeremy Jordan: It comes out on June 24th worldwide.

[7:04] Alan Seales: That was a test. He passed because I haven't. My house. Good job. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

[7:10] Jeremy Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. Alrighty. Until next time.