Tveit Me, Baby. Or Leave Me
Wednesday, April 6, 2016 at 5:30PM 
We didn't do our usual Stage Door column this past Monday (on account of no theater trips this week) so let's talk Aaron Tveit since we're focusing on male actors for a change this month. While he originally made his mark in stage musicals (including in the DiCaprio role in Catch Me If You Can) the small screen seems to have eaten up his time since. Nevertheless this week's "Miscast" benefit concert reminded us of his inarguable charisma. (More on that concert in a minute)
He hasn't done enough movies given how perfect he was as Enjolras in Les Misérables (2012) but at least we got to see him do Grease Live early this year. Unfortunately he's highly vulnerable right now at falling into the trap that many stage stars do where they end up wasted in TV genres like political, hospital, lawyer, or cop shows that actors with far less broad-ranging gifts could play just as well as they do. Their musical gifts end up completely invisible/wasted. See most of Mandy Patinkin's & Audra McDonald's TV careers. (Obviously Patinkin is excellent on Homeland but his TV career has been... strange)
The gold standard for current stage stars trying to make it on TV is arguably Sutton Foster...
Sutton is brilliant on Younger (with TV boyfriend Nico Tortorella)
While neither of Foster's two headliner series gigs, the short-lived but totally beloved Bunheads and the more successful sitcom Younger (which is now heading for a third season), were "musicals" per se they both seem to have been modelled around her specific musical comedy genius; they're often as endearing and funny and physically exuberant as the actress herself. Bunheads even let her sing once and dance a few times. No such luck on Younger (yet) but she's sensational on it anyway and it's a good show so all is truly well.
Tveit hasn't been as lucky but male Broadway musical stars have a tough time transferring. Cheyenne Jackson and Laura Benanti work often but in projects up to his actual potential? Probably not! (Benanti in particular is so funny it's a shame no one has built a sitcom around her). Sutton super fan Jonathan Groff lucked out with a high quality show that was, like Sutton's projects, perfect for him but most male musical stars who manage successful transfers to TV seem to end up more like Steven Pasquale (probably a good Tveit comparison) where people who've seen them on various mid level shows don't have a single clue how rich their vocal instrument is. (One assumes fans of Pasquale shows like American Crime, The Good Wife, Bloodline, and Rescue Me would be absolutely shocked to know that he has one of the most beautiful male singing voices you can possibly imagine.)
Tveit on GracelandTveit spent two seasons on the FBI show Graceland and next up is a political comedy called "BrainDead" in which he'll play a top Republican operative opposite Mary Elizabeth Winstead (the show's lead). Here's the good news though: the series sounds superweird and potentially funny as it involves aliens eating Congressmen's brains so perhaps Tveit and Winstead won't be wasted on it as by its very nature it can't be a generic political drama.
The solution to all of this career building dilemma for Broadway stars is obvious: Hollywood just needs to make more big and small screen musicals. (In a more perfect world, alas.)
Anyway... Here is Aaron Tveit at Broadway's annual MISCAST Benefit Concert wherein celebs get to sing numbers from famous roles they'd never be allowed to play. This concert is the best. This is also the event that previously gave us the insanely rewatchable Jonathan Groff Sutton Foster tribute (now implanted permanently on my retinas given the constant replays). In this video Gavin Creel and Aaron Tveit do the saucy lesbian duet "Take Me or Leave Me" from Rent (Beware. this performance causes virtual pregnancy or gay blue balls)
P.S. Tveit also did the Nancy the hooker torchsong from Oliver! "As Long As He Needs Me". Alas you have to click over for that one because of that STUPID thing where some sites manage a no embed policy despite not owning the material posted. Argh.
Aaron Tveit, Gavin Creel, LGBT, Oliver!, Rent, Steven Pasquale, TV, musicals
Reader Comments (13)
THAT VIDEO. It needs a warning! Now I'm in public feeling some kind of way.
Love Tveit. I even watched half season of Graceland just to look at him (+ Sunjata)
Gavin Creel did "As If We Never Said Goodbye," one of Lloyd Webber's greatest songs at this concert too.
UNF at him slaying TMOLM. Had they waited a few years to make it, he would of been my top pick for Roger in the movie version of RENT (with Jeremy Jordan as Mark, obviously!)
HOWEVER, ignoring their musical gifts on screen allows them to make money and then periodically do return theatre *events* and charge larger fees.
I'd argue that Gavin Creel held his own on that one.
Also, the three boys singing The Schuyler Sisters from Hamilton at Miscast were life.
I must've watched this video close to a dozen times now. And YES also to the three boys singing "The Schuyler Sisters". ADORABLE overload!
Swoon.
I will never recover from the cancellation of Bunheads. Sigh.
I'm with brookesboy - nothing has been able to fill the Bunheads-shaped hole in my life and I highly doubt anything ever will.
And while that Take Me Or Leave Me is VERY good, the highlight of this year's Miscast was EASILY Tituss Burgess and Tina Fey doing "You're Nothing Without Me" from City of Angels, which come to think of it, would be a PERFECT movie musical - it being about the making of a movie and all. The performance isn't only great because Fey does really well on a really tricky song, but because the song is a duet between a writer and his main character. META! And Tituss slays as always.
I saw Aaron Tveit in Next to Normal and it was glorious. How that musical was never made into a movie, I will never understand, it's absolutely awesome! And Tveit was brillant! After seeing him as Enjolras I want him in all movie musicals!
Laura Benanti is at least starring in a musical on Broadway - "She Loves You" with Gavin Creel.
If Hollywood isn't going to do musicals could the plethora of Late night talk shows at least invite Broadway stars to appear regularly ? This used to happen.
@brookesboy & denny- whenever I get the Bunhead blues I go to you tube and watch Seth Rudetsky video interviews with Benanti, Foster, O'Hara, etc.
Do yourself a favour and check them out.
Also wasted on TV is Raul Esparza. He was so electrifying in Company (he got a standing ovation twice! Once at the end of a song, not even the curtain call yet!) but then just gets stuck on Law & Order and that one Patrick Wilson doctor drama that I think only lasted one season.