Jeremy Jordan with Seth Rudetsky
The Scottsdale Center for the Arts, February 19, 2022, Scottsdale, AZ
Reviewed by Lynn Timmons Edwards
This was the second of only two Seth Rudetsky concerts this season. This time, he presented Jeremy Jordan, star of Broadway, television, and film, making his Arizona debut.
While the Broadway series in Scottsdale has a solid fan base, Jordan’s welcoming hearkened back to the Beatles at Shea Stadium. The sold-out house was teeming with a younger-than-usual audience, and the ladies let go with high-pitched glee at every turn.
“J.J.,” as Rudetsky likes to call him, opened with “Moving Too Fast” (Jason Robert Brown), one of his big numbers from the film The Last Five Years in which he costarred with Anna Kendrick. It was only his second film and he and Seth dove right into stories about the filming, including having to wear nude pantyhose for a love scene. The irony is that in the end, all the editors used was the actors’ faces.
Jordan is loose, confident, and very casual on stage. He can pull off showing up in jeans, tennis shoes, a loose shirt, and a sweater because his talent is enormous. He might have been dressed for rehearsal, but he nailed every song and took the audience on a journey through his résumé. Although he’s now 37, he still looks 18 on stage. He received a Tony nomination for Newsies, the Broadway musical based on the movie that influenced him as a kid to pursue musical theater. He proved he can still sell “Santa Fe” (Alan Menken/Jack Feldman). Most recently, he starred in the off-Broadway revival of Menken and Howard Ashman’s Little Shop of Horrors and gave us some of his best acting with “Grow for Me.” That inspired Rudetsky, who was loving it, to join in duet on “Suddenly Seymour.”
Despite a fair amount of trash talking, the duo dished the dirt about all of Jordan’s exploits on the Great White Way. A decade ago, Jordan landed a plum contract playing Tony in West Side Story. His took home a full Equity salary and only had to show up for the two matinees a week. He talked about how challenging it was working for the show’s director (and original book author) Arthur Laurents. After that, he dazzled us with “Maria” (Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim) floating to a high B flat as if it were another day at the office.
Jordan starred in the short-lived Bonnie and Clyde on Broadway in 2011 for which he won the Theatre World Award; offered his medley of “greatest hits” from the score. He recently returned from London where he filmed a fully staged concert version of that musical scheduled for release sometime later this year. He warned us to watch for continuity, not knowing that the directors planned to edit three performances into a single release. Thinking he was being clever wearing his only costume, he has no idea when he donned his hat and pulled out his shirt from night to night at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
Jordan is a master of pop scores; the faster the melody and the more story compressed into the lyrics the better. His voice is best when he lets it soar, making his falsetto indiscernible from his Broadway baritone/tenor range. Jordan played Jimmy Collins, a fictional songwriter in the 2013 season of Smash. He sang Jimmy’s song, “Broadway Here I Come” (Joe Iconis), letting the audience fall through the sky with him.
The masking-optional policy of the Scottsdale Center laid down tight restrictions at Jordan’s request. Even Rudetsky had to wear a mask. Now married with a three-year-old daughter (hence the concerns over Covid), Jordan paid tribute to his wife, Ashley Spencer, a fellow Broadway baby, with a medley of “Smile” (Charlie Chaplin/Jeffrey Parsons/John Turner) and “I’ll Be Seeing You” (Sammy Fain/Irving Kahal). The “old songs” as he refers to them are not his comfort zone, but he is always sincere. For the finale, Rudetsky brought up the annual fundraiser for MCC (Manhattan Class Company) Theater, Miscast, and pulled up a song he has performed at least twice with previous female guests, “She Used to Be Mine” from the Sara Bareilles musical Waitress. Jordan held his own on the song against any Broadway actress.
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A little less polished, the mashup of “Over the Rainbow” (Harold Arlen/Yip Harburg) and “Home” brought down the house.
After thunderous applause the duo returned to the stage (which did not happen at the previous Rudetsky concert) for the encore, “Bring Him Home” (Herbert Kretzmer/Alain Boublil/Claude-Michel Schonberg) from Les Misérables. Jordan opted to sing it sans mic, which would have worked better in a smaller setting. It provoked a feeling of prayer and left the evening on a somber, quiet note in contrast to the screams of his fans. While there was no mention of his appearances as Winn on the TV show Supergirl, which ran for six seasons, he clearly has a following beyond Broadway.
