James Vincent Meredith co-stars in the Chicago production of ‘The Book of Mormon” interviewed By Julia Borcherts for RedEye.
What was your audition process?
April of this year, I was called in to audition at the equity offices here in town. I had a scene and a few bars of a song. They called me back—maybe a week later at the most—and I did the same thing again with the director in the room and a few more people behind the table [laughs]. And then after that, I just kind of waited and waited and I actually I think I knew via my agent in May or June. But there were so many other things to get worked out that I didn’t really go public with it until the last few weeks. [Laughs]
What did you do when you found out you’d landed the role?
First, I was crazy with excitement and then I got crazy with fear because I haven’t done a musical on this big a stage in…uh…ever.
I think I’d only done one musical before and that was “The King and I” out at Drury Lane Oakbrook—maybe five, six years ago—and I didn’t really have to sing much [laughs], so that was a lot less stressful.
So once I got over the excitement and the following fear, I just got to work and started seeing a vocal coach and tried to learn about as much of the musical as I could before I went to New York for rehearsals.
What’s one of the craziest or most unexpected things that’s happened so far during rehearsals?
At one point, we had finished a run-through and there’s a guy who’s piping in with these notes here and there and I don’t really know who he is but I imagine he’s important because no one is cutting him off and he’s literally sitting right next to our director. And everyone’s taking his notes—and they’re pretty good notes.
So we get through the whole process and at the very end, I’m talking to one of the actors and I’m like, “Should I know this guy?” And they’re like, “Yeah, that’s Trey Parker!” [laughs]
I’m like, “No [bleep]!” I couldn’t believe that that was the guy who was giving us these notes—at the very beginning of rehearsals and through the process, we never really had an opportunity where we met Trey and Matt, and I had never honestly really seen them.
So I actually went up and met him afterwards and told him that and he kind of cracked up.
Read the complete interview {Via RedEyeChicago.com}
The Book of Mormon is scheduled to run at Chicago’s Bank of America Theatre from Tuesday, Dec. 11, to Sunday, June 2. Buy Book Of Mormon Chicago IL Tickets Online at discounted prices – Save $10 when you spend 350+, Use code AFF$10.
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