The Article

 

Morris dancer makes leap to Broadway

Parsippany performer snags a leading role in 'Chorus Line' revival

BY MEREDITH NAPOLITANO
SPECIAL TO THE DAILY RECORD

Bob Avian, director of the upcoming Broadway revival of "A Chorus Line," pulled Jessica Lee Goldyn aside backstage after a grueling day of callbacks and said, "I want you to know you did a real great job today." She was expecting him to follow with a big "But ..."

"I thought he was going to tell me, 'You're good, but you're too young and not experienced enough,'" Goldyn said. After all, she had come this far -- making it to the final callback of one of the most famous Broadway shows at the mere age of 20.

But two hours later, when she arrived at her Parsippany home, Goldyn's agent called. Avian had cast her in the show. She got the part of Val, the good-looking charmer with pigtails, a great body and a bad mouth who sings "Dance:Ten, Looks:Three."

Goldyn's mouth dropped and she began bawling at the surreal nature of her situation. She ran outside on her lawn, wearing her robe, to get better reception on her phone and make sure she heard right. She did.

All of this had happened in just a month, and all because Goldyn determinedly went to one open "cattle call" for the revival by herself, not through her agent. She had no appointment, but waited to sing and dance for the director. At the callback she asked to read for parts more suited to her age.

But at the final callback, which was on the stage of the Broadhurst Theater, where the show will premiere in September, Goldyn was asked to sing and read for Val.

"I was pinching myself," she said. But she nailed it and she knew it. "They laughed during my monologue -- that's a sign."

Then the director asked how old she was.

"I told the truth: 20." Since Val is 27 in the show, she thought she had blown her chances. But it didn't stop Avian from picking her.

"What I love about Val is that she goes in knowing she's going to get the job," Goldyn said. "I love her honesty."

"A Chorus Line" centers on a band of eager, hopeful dancers auditioning for a demanding director's new Broadway show. During the auditions, he breaks a wall between director and performer by asking each one to embellish on his or her personal life. Ultimately it is the honesty of each one that gets them the job.

The musical had a record-breaking run on Broadway from 1975 to 1990. The Broadway revival opens Sept. 21.

"Chicago"star Charlotte d'Amboise, who briefly took Christina Applegate's place in "Sweet Charity"last year, and Michael Berresse of "The Light in the Piazza" will head the cast.

Goldyn's aggressive, adaptive, "ball of energy" personality perfectly melds with the life of a musical theater performer, and her honesty certainly served her well in this case. Often in the business, things happen with a certain spontaneity, and one must always be ready for anything. So in June, Goldyn will head off to preview "A Chorus Line" in San Francisco before making her Broadway debut in September.

"I didn't think it would happen so fast,"said her mother, Cindi Goldyn. "It is inspiring to see someone going for their dreams. Most people don't take that risk, and I am proud of her for that."

Jessica Goldyn's acclimation to performing developed almost as quickly as her Broadway debut. Those who know her best nod knowingly at her success. A triple threat (singing, dancing, acting), she showed a promising talent from the time she put on dance shoes at age 3. From ages 5 to 10 she also competed in gymnastics for North Stars in Parsippany.

"I secretly danced while I was doing gymnastics -- they didn't want you doing both,"she said.

She ultimately quit gymnastics and stuck with dance, but said acrobatics was a great background, as it has given her an athletic edge in her dancing.

At age 11, Goldyn began studying at Worth-Tyrrell Studios, a Morristown performing arts school. Thanks to Worth-Tyrrell, Goldyn is no stranger to "A Chorus Line." The school has put on a production of the show every year for 27 years. Goldyn has acted in at least seven of those productions, playing multiple parts, and continues to choreograph them for the school.

"I know it in my sleep," she said. "I always imagined my Broadway debut being 'A Chorus Line,' and now it's happening. I get teary-eyed."

"Jessica is one of the most talented and hard-working (students) to come through here," said Caroline Worth-Tyrrell, artistic director of the the studio, who gave Goldyn a highly coveted scholarship to study dance, voice and musical theater at the school.

"She's constantly going," added Brad Tyrrell, the executive director at Worth-Tyrrell. "You can't teach desire and work ethic, and she naturally has that, along with talent. When you get all three, you are going somewhere."

Just a few years after she started studying at the school, Goldyn began assistant teaching the classes she had been taking.

While Goldyn was taking classes Worth-Tyrrell, she also studied intensely at New Jersey Ballet School, where she played Clara in "The Nutcracker" at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn. Just a few years later, she was cast as a featured dancer in "Carousel" at that same theater.

"I am thrilled for her. It's her dream," said Carolyn Clark, founder and director of New Jersey Ballet.

"She was always very conscientious, lots of energy, giving 500 percent," Clark said. "She had been at the school for seven years, going from the advanced division to the junior company and to playing Clara."

After "The Nutcracker,"Goldyn stopped performing with the ballet company to focus solely on musical theater.

"The energy I have while performing is the most alive I feel,"Goldyn said. She said she came to a realization that there's not as much passion in ballet. But stopping ballet wasn't just due to her degree of passion.

"It was always about the body," she said. "Everyone must look the same. I was always put in the back because my body type isn't 'ballerina' enough."

Goldyn said it was this pressure that ultimately drove her to stop.

"They wanted you thin and they didn't care how. A lot of my friends were sick. There was a time when I wasn't eating enough. It drove me nuts," she said.

"I find more joy and personality in musical theater. It requires more strength."

Her mother said, "She wasn't naturally born with a ballerina body. But she is determined and will go at length for what she wants. I always made sure she kept a level head about what she ate."

"She has the personality and physical makeup for Broadway," Clark said. "In ballet, there are standards that must be met if you want a career in it. You should be small boned and have a 180 degree rotation in your hips." She said it is a lifelong journey of always working to improve a dancer's turnout and performance.

Because she wanted even more training, Goldyn enrolled in the Performing Arts High School in New York City, using her grandparents' Staten Island address as her own. She wanted a high school whose focus was performing, not academics.

"I hated school; I just wanted to perform," she said, adding that she always felt odd as a dancer in her former school, St. Christopher's in Parsippany. "People thought I was the weird girl in the newspaper."

In high school, Goldyn played Charity in the school's production of "Sweet Charity," but soon another opportunity came along that took her out of school early: a non-union national tour of "Fosse." Barely 18, she was cast in the tour and given solos to perform in the show, often causing resentment from the older dancers in the company.

"When you are on tour it's like you are all a family," she said wearily, adding that any feelings of jealousy she received only made her work harder. Nothing could take away the accomplished feeling being on tour gave her.

"The tour really affirmed that this is my career," she said.

After the tour, Goldyn took a test to get her high school diploma and then continued to audition. She earned her Actor's Equity card playing Val in "A Chorus Line" at the Carousel Dinner Theater in Ohio.

"We decided not to do the college route because she wanted to take advantage of those four years and use them for dancing," her mother said. "A dancer's career can be short."

The life of a dancer and performer is a special one. Goldyn was certainly not an average child, and her parents never treated her as one. Her mother acted as her agent before she had one. But she is no stage mom.

"It's never been a chore for me. She motivates me," her mother said.

"She is completely supportive of whatever decision I make,"Goldyn said of her mother. "If I wanted to quit tomorrow, it's OK with her.

"My dad used to think I missed out on a childhood," she said. But she disagrees.

"I loved Worth-Tyrrell. I loved flipping back and forth between there and school and ballet."

She is a performer whose profession naturally calls attention to what she does.

"For a while my dad didn't want me to have anything to do with musical theater," she said. But when he saw her in "Fosse,"his mind changed. "Now he jokes about what the next Broadway gig will be."

One thing Goldyn never did was get a driver's license. "I don't have time," she said. And she doesn't need one. Even while performing on Broadway, she plans live at home and continue taking the bus into the city, as she has done her whole life.

"I like to have a home out of the city," she says. "A place to relax."

Goldyn's secret to success is always giving 110 percent, she said.

"It simply isn't work for Jessica," Caroline Worth-Tyrrell said. "Even when she is not performing, she desires to inspire others to do it."

Goldyn even has her future mapped out. She will continue make her dreams come true on stage until her body can't do it any longer.

"You have to take advantage of the span of time you can dance in," she said.

But after that she has another dream: opening her own dance studio with her mom.

"It was always a dream of my mom's. She'd own it and I'd teach."

But who knows? Something else could spontaneously surface when she least expects it, just like "A Chorus Line."