![]() ![]() “I don’t think she really thought I was being that serious. “I remember being a little kid and just like seeing the kids on those commercials and turning to my mom being like, ‘I could do that. He would watch Kidz Bop and TV commercials with singing kids - Oscar Mayer hot dogs and Welch's juice ads - and wonder if that was a path. He recently visited his physical therapist, who instantly knew Donica had lost weight because the settings on the table didn't fit him anymore.īorn in Minnesota, Donica spent his first birthday in Chicago, then moved to Tennessee for eight years and then on to Indiana. ![]() He gained 15 pounds beforehand, anticipating he'd sweat much of it away. The role is vocally and physically demanding. Because if we don’t speak about it and put it into existence, it doesn’t actually exist,” he says. And we have to fight every day to tell the stories of what freedom is and what America is. “There’s that kind of connection in his body, relationship to his voice, deep intelligence and endless creativity that makes him so special.”ĭonica in “Camelot” first appears on stage almost like a righteous angel - singing “C’est Moi” with the lyrics “Here I stand as pure as a prayer/Incredibly clean with virtue to spare” - but ends the musical very human, what he describes as a sobering and yet fun journey. “You have a wonderful artist on your hands who’s capable of immersing themselves in a part and in a world and delivering very different things in both cases,” says Sher. Tony-winning director Bartlett Sher hired Donica for both “My Fair Lady” and “Camelot,” roles that required the actor to be ardent and sweet in the first and a brash, sword-catching hunk in the second. The story has been updated by Aaron Sorkin to focus on the dream of democracy, but the songs by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe remain. ![]() ![]() In the lavish, sweeping “Camelot,” he plays a virtuous if egotistical knight who is in a love triangle with King Arthur and Guenevere. “I was like, ‘I need to learn how to use my voice the way that man is using his voice.’ And I set out to do that.”ĭonica has had roles on TV's “Charmed” and “Blue Bloods” and also starred as Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in the Los Angeles and San Francisco companies of the musical "Hamilton." He originated the role of Freddy Eynsford-Hill in the 2018 Lincoln Center Theater revival of “My Fair Lady.” He had been in the audience as a kid during that New York visit, mesmerized by the skill of the Phantom. He made his Broadway debut in 2016 as Raoul in “The Phantom of the Opera,” coming full-circle. His first email address had the words “Broadway Bound” in it.Ī 2016 graduate of Otterbein University, Donica sharpened his craft in regional theater, playing Jesus in “Jesus Christ Superstar” at the Weathervane Playhouse in Ohio and was in the ensemble in “South Pacific” at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. He would tell friends as early as middle school that he knew what he was going to do with his life. That was the first thought I had was, ‘I’m excited to get back to work,’” he says.ĭonica's story is of a man with a huge voice who moved a lot in his youth but always had Broadway as his North Star. “I’m just thankful and it just makes me want to do the work even more. With determination and talent, Donica still hasn't slowed down, earning his first Tony Award nomination for playing the hunky, gallant knight Sir Lancelot in a gorgeous Lincoln Center Theater revival of the classic musical “Camelot.” “The thing that I love the most is here, at its height - the core where everything explodes out from.” My aunt had to tell me to slow down,” he recalls, now happily a New Yorker. “It was raining and I was dancing through the streets of Times Square, loving every second of it. Thankfully, that mission failed spectacularly. NEW YORK (AP) - When Jordan Donica was about 9 or 10, his aunt took him to New York City with a mission: Get the notion of making it on Broadway out of his system. (Joan Marcus/Lincoln Center Theater via AP) Joan Marcus/AP Show More Show Less (Joan Marcus/Lincoln Center Theater via AP) Joan Marcus/AP Show More Show Less 2 of2 This image released by Lincoln Center Theater shows Jordan Danica as Sir Lancelot, left, and Phillipa Soo as Guenevere in a scene from a Lincoln Center Theater revival of the classic musical “Camelot” in New York. 1 of2 This image released by Lincoln Center Theater shows Jordan Danica as Sir Lancelot in a scene from a Lincoln Center Theater revival of the classic musical “Camelot” in New York. ![]()
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