Theresa: Hello Mr. Wagner, this is Theresa Hyde from HoustonTheatre.com.
Chuck Wagner: Very good. Do you know about our website as well? The Official
Jekyll & Hyde website is www.jekyll-hyde.com. The message board contains a million
streams of consciousness. My own website is simply www.chuckwagner.com. We already
have the Jekkies, and I kinda interact with them online at the J&H site. And
then there's the subculture of the Jekkie's now that are calling themselves
Chuckkies.
Theresa: (laughs) Do they have Las Vegas Conventions and stuff?
Chuck Wagner: Well, no. But we have this last week in Houston, there's gonna
be a huge ConFab with them, I think. I know that single - handedly my fan club
has bought almost $5,000 worth of tickets so....
Theresa: Great! Congratulations, this is great!
Chuck Wagner: Thanks. It's pretty exciting. I'm a firm believer in being User
- Friendly. Theresa: Oh, me too. I love it.
Theresa: The Alley Theatre in Houston is where the Musical Jekyll & Hyde originated.
Chuck Wagner: This is where Jekyll & Hyde was born. I will be literally across
the street from the Alley Theatre at the Jones Hall.
Theresa: Who was the director that cast you at the Alley Theatre?
Chuck Wagner: Gregory Boyd, who's the Artistic Director there. I was hoping
we could do something to help benefit the Alley Theatre, considering this is
Jekyll & Hyde's tenth anniversary.
Theresa: How did you get cast in the original production in Houston, Texas?
Chuck Wagner: My association with Frank Wildhorn goes back to USC (University
of Southern California in Los Angeles). And the first time we ever sang any
of his music was twenty years ago.
Theresa: According to the Chuck Wagner website, Mr. Wagner first met Frank Wildhorn
as a student at USC, in 1978. Mr. Wagner starred in Frank Wildhorn's first musical
called Christopher.
Chuck Wagner: Even back then, a guy named Steve Cuden, who is a fellow student
with us at USC, and Frank got together and decided to put Jekyll & Hyde up as
a musical and some of the songs including Murder Murder and The Feeling of Being
Alive still kind of exist in the show. It's been a long time in gestation, and
it's still going strong on Broadway and what's exciting to me about this return
is that we're gonna be closing the National Tour here, though eventually they're
gonna send out a non-union tour. So, this is like the last great Equity tour
of Jekyll & Hyde. The tour will be closing this week in Houston. And what's
great about it is that, it's not so much a finale to me as it is a tenth anniversary
celebration.
Theresa: Wow. Has it been that long?
Chuck Wagner: Ten years to the month, that we did Jekyll & Hyde. Because I had
worked with Frank before, I got to sing on the Demos as they were working on
the music. So I've been involved with it from the very very beginning. I've
always been part of the Frank Wildhorn family of musicians and musical actors.
So, I've just been blessed in that regard.
The show was great, and then the next year we did Svengali at the Alley Theatre.
In fact my daughter was born in Houston, on the Opening Night of Svengali, the
year after J&H in 1991. And then we took that show, Svengali, to the Asolo Theater
in Sarasota, Florida. And I was convinced that either Jekyll & Hyde or Svengali
was gonna go right to Broadway so I packed up my wife and my children, we moved
to New York (or outside of New York) so we'd be ready when Jekyll & Hyde came.
And then they kinda bogged down a little bit.
I was lucky, about a week after I moved to New York, I got cast in the National
Tour of Les Miserables. And then, after touring for a year they brought me to
NY, and so I was there on Broadway when they put together what they called the
pre-Broadway tour of Jekyll & Hyde. And that's the one that Theatre Under The
Stars mounted. They toured for about two years before they got to NY and by
the time they got Jekyll & Hyde to Broadway, I had already been cast in Beauty
and the Beast, opened as the Beast in Canada, and had come back to play as the
Beast in New York. So I was in my throne , basically, at the Palace Theatre
in New York as the Beast, when Jekyll & Hyde finally did open in New York. So
it was like, "Frank, what took you so long?"
After I finished my run in Beauty and the Beast, they invited me to come and
do this National Tour, so my association with Jekyll & Hyde has been a comfortable
one. I try to bring as much as I can to the role. It's an exciting piece of
Theatre, and it's a good solid workout to do the show.
Theresa: What would be the most challenging part of your role as Jekyll & Hyde
Chuck Wagner: One of the things, for the people who have not seen the Broadway
production, the confrontation used to be done where Dr. Jekyll was onstage and
Mr. Hyde was a pre - recorded projection. On Broadway, it was simplified to
what I call, "The Hair Ballet." (laughs) And when you see the show, you'll see
why it's called that. But I literally have to fight back and forth with myself,
alone on an empty stage. It's a big solo/duet.
Theresa: Do you struggle with a doll?
Chuck Wagner: No, it's just me.
Theresa: Oh, you're pulling your hair out!
Chuck Wagner: Well, you'll have to see. You'll have to see how the Hair works.
The Hair is an integral part of the Change. That's probably the most challenging
number of the show. It is called Confrontation. It's great. It's very liberating
and I think it's one of the real theatrical achievements of the show. It's simplified
in one aspect of the actual mechanics of the staging. But because you have to
do it in real time, fighting yourself, it gets complicated for the Actor. It's
a real nice piece of Theatre magic.
Theresa: Who helped you the most in creating this role?
Chuck Wagner: Well, certainly Robert Louis Stevenson is a big factor. He wrote
the book a hundred years ago. I draw from a lot of people, from the Frederick
March film, then there's the Spencer Tracy film that was very influential as
far as my take on Hyde and Jekyll. I'd like to give credit to Mr. Frank Wildhorn
for just writing the great music.
Theresa: Tell us about your musical background. When did you start singing?
Chuck Wagner: I started a long, long time ago. I was in the choir, and did a
lot of Musicals in High School. I did an outdoor Theatre called The Lost Colony
in North Carolina where we did lots of shows. That was under the direction of
the late Broadway Director Joe Layton, who told me, "There's two places to go
if you're serious about ther business, New York or Los Angeles." And because
there was a beach in L.A., I moved to Los Angeles. That led me to the connection
with Frank and then I did Musicals constantly while I was USC. Right after College,
I did a few local Musicals in Los Angeles. But then I got cast in a TV series
called AUTOMAN, which gave me some national notoriety, which allowed me to then,
star as Athos in The Three Musketeers in the Broadway revival of that Musical.
It didn't run very long, but still it was my Broadway debut, and kinda got me
into Broadway in a really nice way, 'cause it gave me Star Billing to begin
with.
I lived in California for 10 years after graduating college, pretty much after
we opened the show in Houston. We knew that Broadway was the way it was gonna
happen. And so we moved into New York.
Theresa: Did you know at that time, that it was gonna be as big as it is now?
Chuck Wagner: We (Frank and I) always felt that whatever we did was State -
of - the - Art Musical Theatre. That was just kinda our cocky, young attitude
that we always had. But we always felt that we were on the pulse of what was
happening. Even when we were College students, we felt that we were doing Broadway
level theatre. So we've always felt that we had Broadway bubbling in our veins
for years and years and years.
Theresa: Who influenced you into becoming an Actor and a Singer?
Chuck Wagner: The one that put me in the right direction, is a lady named Juliet
Guthrie, who has also passed away. But she was my drama teacher in High School
in Gallatin, Tennessee. She saw some talent in me, and got me pointed in the
right direction. And I've been pretty much working constantly ever since.
Theresa: Who are your most favorite actors?
Chuck Wagner: I love Patrick Stewart. Brent Spiner ,who is Data in Star Trek,
was in The Three Musketeers with me, so we go way back. Probably the greatest
screen actor in our generation is Anthony Hopkins. In Live Musical Stage right
now, I'm a big fan of Mandy Patinkin, Howard McGillin, who I think is the Phantom
of the Opera right now. I love them all! Anybody who's got the guts to get up
there and do it, my hat's off to them!
Theresa: What qualities do you look for when working with Actors and Directors?
Chuck Wagner: I like people who have a nice sense of humor, without a big chip
on their shoulder. I like people who can joke and just have fun. People who
take life a little too seriously can turn me off. Just have fun and be thankful
for the gifts that you're given. That's the kind of people that I like. I've
been very blessed to be working with mostly these kind of people in my lifetime.
Theresa: What would you like the audience to gain from watching this play?
Chuck Wagner: The show itself is a journey and I hope that they are exhilarated
by the show. I hope they are moved by the romance of the show. I hope they certainly
appreciate the tension, it's certainly a dark show, so it's got some dark moments.
I just hope particularly for the young people to come, especially the ones that
are ten or older, this is certainly a great show for you to get hooked on Theatre.
I just hope that we can pass on our passion. Like I was hooked when I was a
kid, I hope we can hook young people on the magic of Live Musical Theatre.
Theresa: What would you like to say to the Houston Theatre going audience?
Chuck Wagner: Just please come out and help me celebrate the tenth anniversary.
And THANKS, as always, for helping to support the Theatre. Feel free to come
out into the lobby after the show and I'm happy to meet and sign autographs.
It's a shameless attempt for me to sell more of my CD's. It's also a chance
for me to really connect with the audience. Between the online connection, one
of the things that's great about communicating with the Jekkies, and also the
people who chat on my site, it creates an audience every night that are like
friends and family. If we personalize the audience, it makes it that much more
of a magical experience.
Theresa: What plans do you have in the future?
Chuck Wagner: That's the miracle of show business and it's also the conundrum.
Every time you come to the end of a job, you're kind of stepping off the cliff
into space. And you hope that God will support you as He has for the longest
time. And He's been taking good care of me for twenty years so, I have great
Faith.
I am mostly looking forward to going home and being home and helping with the
day to day running of the family. Helping the kids with school, helping with
the yard work and things like that. That's my immediate goal. As far as what's
gonna happen career-wise, I have great Faith. I've had a magical journey so
far, and I feel like I'm just starting out.
Theresa: Tell us about your family, where do you and your family live?
Chuck Wagner: I live in New Jersey, just outside of Manhattan. I have two kids,
my son is 13 and his name is Stewart. My daughter Paige, who was born in Houston,
a native Texan is 9 years old. I'm about to turn 42, and my wife's name is Susan.
That's it....I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at Jones Hall
as we celebrate 10 glorious years of the Grand Experiment.