Music Theatre alum Daniel J. Watts ’04 shares his experiences as “Flex” in at Second Stage Theatre.
Alumnus Daniel J. Watts ’04 recently finished a run in the Off-Broadway play Whorl Inside a Loop at Second Stage Theatre in New York City, which closed on Sunday, September 27.
Watts has had his fair share of experiences on the stage in New York City, performing in the Broadway casts of After Midnight, Memphis, Motown, The Little Mermaid, In the Heights, The Color Purple, and Ghost.
“Being a working actor is essentially being a professional auditioner,” Watts said. “When I was at Elon, there was a huge stress on auditioning; it was mandatory that we audition for everything. I would say 60% of being a working actor is being a good auditioner. The other 40% is being a good performer and/or a good person to work with, so you can get to a point when you don’t have to audition anymore. I didn’t have to audition for Whorl Inside a Loop. I had previously worked with Sherie Rene Scott on The Little Mermaid and with Dick Scanlan on Motown. They told me they had a project they were working on that they believed I’d be perfect for.”
In Whorl Inside a Loop, a well-known actress (Scott) is the Volunteer, teaching six inmates how to tell their stories while they are behind the bars of a men’s maximum-security prison. Sharing intimate and sometimes hilarious details of their former lives (while portraying characters of varying age, gender and race), this unlikely group forms a bond – even as The Volunteer’s life outside spins out of control.
In Whorl Inside a Loop, the audience is seeing a play within a play. Watts describes, “I play Flex, but technically, Flex plays Patti Urdang (the volunteer dance instructor) and Sean (the hair dresser). An audience member is naturally going to put a story onto a character to make it make sense for them. Flex being an African-American inmate in an orange jumpsuit simply says ‘criminal,’ but Flex getting to play these other characters of different races, genders, and even sexual orientation immediately allows, or rather forces the audience to see Flex in a different light. He finally gets to be more than just a criminal.”
When asked how being in an Off-Broadway play has differed from his experiences in Broadway musicals, Watts went on to say, “Good story telling is good story telling. The only difference is the device with which to enhance the telling of the story. Interestingly enough, the cast is predominantly made up of people I’ve worked with in musicals on Broadway, so in a lot of ways it felt pretty much the same. An Off-Broadway paycheck is lower than a Broadway production contract, but it has been more than worth it for the opportunity to be showcased in a different light.”
Earlier this year, Watts took time away from the musical stage and moved to LA to pursue other dreams and interests. “I needed to get some TV/Film credits under my belt,” Watts said, “and I had to make the hard decision of saying ‘No’ to several projects to get the point across that I was ready for new things.” One of those projects was Hamilton. Originally declining involvement in the production in order to pursue his goals in LA, Watts, now back in New York City, joined the Broadway company this week, marking his 8 Broadway musical.
“I’m still transitioning; I’m not done doing Broadway musicals,” Watts said. “I just needed a break. My objective is to continue doing more plays, television, and film as well as develop my own solo work into commercial properties.”
When asked what his advice would be to current students pursuing musical theatre, Watts described, “My advice would be to figure out and focus on who you are, what makes you tick, what sets you apart from the pack. I am currently teaching my course at NYU in the New Studio under Tisch about just that. The goal is to challenge the students to break themselves down and decipher who they are as individuals and artists. That is when you can do your best work.”
Hamilton is Lin-Manuel Miranda’s new musical about the unlikely founding father determined to make his mark on the new nation as hungry and ambitious as he is. From bastard orphan to Washington’s right hand man, rebel to war hero, a loving husband caught in the country’s first sex scandal, to the Treasury head who made an untrusting world believe in the American economy. George Washington, Eliza Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and Hamilton’s lifelong friend/foil Aaron Burr all make their mark in this astonishing new musical exploration of a political mastermind.
You can catch Daniel J. Watts and the cast of Hamilton now in the Richard Rodgers Theatre.