The international musical theatre star RAMIN KARIMLOO will be joining Seth Rudetsky onstage for three intimate performances of Seth Rudetsky’s Broadway @ Leicester Square Theatre on 5 and 6 October 2018. The show will combine performances from Ramin with interview sections and ‘behind-the-scenes’ stories.
Ramin is best known for his Olivier-nominated performance in Love Never Dies and The Phantom of The Opera in the West End, plus the Broadway revival of Les Misérables (as Valjean) for which he received a Tony nomination.
Musical Theatre Review’s Lani Calvert talked to Ramin about his upcoming show with Seth Rudetsky, as well as his incredible career in musical theatre so far.
Can you tell us a little bit about the show that you and Seth Rudetsky are putting on and what the audience can expect?
Well, I think with Seth, it can be the unexpected and that’s what I’m looking forward to as well. The guy is unparalleled when it comes to his passion for and knowledge of our industry and music theatre. I’m looking forward to trying new things with him and singing songs that he wants to hear me do, but revisiting it with just a piano.
There’s always a magic when first you do these songs for the producers in a room or in a rehearsal when it’s just stripped back to a piano. We’re just going to have a lot of fun. I want us all to enjoy and celebrate what we love doing, what we love to go see, and just have a lot of fun with Seth’s energy which, again, is worth the ticket price alone – I might be a slight distraction!
Did you have a part in choosing the songs, and if so, what made you choose them?
It’s sort of open for discussion still. I want to see what he’s passionate about. I feel like I’m a guest on Seth’s show and he’s going to interview me, so I think he’s going to talk about my career. I want to personalise it and it not just be a resumé.
I’m going to be 40 when this show happens so that’s something we can talk about and see how these songs have changed through time. The way I look at Phantom now is different than the 26-year-old back in the day, and Valjean will be different. There’s new stuff I want to try, but these are things that I want to talk to him about first, see what will work, what doesn’t work and see what the supporters want.
How do you feel about performing in a more intimate setting such as the Leicester Square Theatre?
I love doing that sort of stuff because it’s such a switch from the big theatre shows. There’s a different energy, a different formality. That’s why when I do this I don’t want people to just necessarily sit there, I want people to interact with us.
When it comes to intimate venues, it’s great, because when I’m rehearsing in a music room there’s something to be said about these great songs… it’s like if I see a painting, I’d love to see the sketch it originated from. And these songs are great stories, sometimes they don’t need anything but just one instrument, one voice, and just go for the ride with that.
Have you worked much with Seth before?
Not as much as I would like, we did some stuff while I was on Broadway. I was on one of his YouTube shows and I joined him for Concert for America. Especially with Concert for America, I saw his passion and that he’s got a big, big heart. I remember thinking ‘I really like Seth, I want to be in his company more and pick his brain as well as join him on stage’.
This guy is so knowledgeable of our industry and what we do in music theatre in general, I’m going to learn from that and I want to hang with him as much as I can. I’m looking forward to these three shows and seeing how we can develop something together.
How do you feel about the interview/behind-the-scenes aspect of the show?
I get nervous about stuff like that because you want to keep the mystique of some things, but again I don’t know what Seth is going to talk about, I just want to see what happens and roll with it from there. Yeah, so that part I’m excited about too, but I get nervous about certain things – it depends on the question!
The whole point of the show is for us to all share an energy. That’s why I’m not a fan of people recording things, get away from that and really be there with us and enjoy it. That way I feel like everyone can feel like I’m talking to them directly. Once you see a phone in between you and that person, it kind of kills a bit of the spirit.
Will the shows be different every night?
I hope so. Maybe just even a different song for each show. When I do stuff with the band, we have such a repertoire that we have a bit of a structure for every show, but every show is different. We can skip plan B and go to plan C and just feel the audience’s energy at that point. It’s good to have more than we need and build the show with each audience.
What do you feel are the biggest differences between performing on Broadway and the West End?
It’s hard to answer that, I feel like I haven’t done enough in the West End over the last few years. I would say that in America there’s a different sense of community, Broadway is a location. It’s a place where people go, Americans will fly out to New York for the weekend to take in shows, that’s the reason they go. I don’t know how much that happens [in England]. But in New York, it’s a trip that people take, and there’s a great energy for that.
The energy here is great too. It’s very underplayed, there’s a slightly looser, slightly more laidback feel here which I adore. So they’re both great. Whenever I’m on one side I miss the other.
Ramin Karimloo at West End Live 2016. Picture: Roy Tan
Is there anything you’d like to see from the West End transfer to Broadway?
I’ve heard so much about Everybody’s Talking about Jamie. I’d love to see that, and I’m sure it deserves a Broadway run. Girl From the North Country also sounded amazing, you know it’s Bob Dylan, come on!
How was performing in the stage adaptation of Anastasia?
I had nothing but great times with that, it was 100% pure joy. From the moment I met the producer in the workshop (Tom Kirdhay, he’s such a great friend now) the spirit he brings to the room, I remember thinking ‘what a great way to go to work’.
And then there’s Terrence McNally, he’s one of the greatest playwrights, so what a joy it was to say his words and his story. I’ve been a big fan of Flaherty and Ahrens for so long so then to sing their music… and then once I’d signed on they said they’d wrote me a song called ‘Still’, and to hear and develop that for the first time, what a great experience that was. It kind of reminded me of ‘Til I Hear You Sing’ from Love Never Dies, to have a song worked around you. What a joy, and what a fortunate position to be in.
You were inspired by Colm Wilkinson in Les Mis, and that is what made you want to become an actor yourself. You then went on to play the role that had inspired you, how did that feel?
I can’t even put it into words, I remember seeing Colm Wilkinson, and it’s odd he’s my friend now, my hero is my buddy. It was such a great experience, and I still feel it’s unfinished. To follow in his footsteps with a few roles and to also have him play the Bishop in Toronto when I was Jean Valjean for a night. You can’t even write this stuff!
If you told me ten years prior that that was going to happen, I would have been like ‘yeah, come on’, or maybe I would have been like ‘sure, why not?’ I came from such a small town that when you dreamt of something, it was never crazy, it was like ‘well, why can’t that happen?’. There were never any nay-sayers really, because who wanted to be the Phantom in my town? No one! So it was like, ‘okay, well you be the Phantom then!’ It was a great way to grow up, there was no one to stymie your daydreams, I was encouraged even. So to play the part of Phantom, I remember putting on the make-up and calling one of my friends and saying ‘guess what I’m about to do’, and he was like, ‘holy shit, you did it’, and I was like ‘yeah I know, I gotta go!’
Ramin Karimloo as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables. Picture: Matthew Murphy
Are there any dream roles you would still like to play?
I don’t really want to say dream roles because one is not better or more important than another, it’s whatever is going to make me grow. But of course, I want to play Sweeney Todd, I want to do Guido in Nine, I think being in Carousel would be fun. I want to do a comedy, a play, I want to work with Mark Rylance. I’ve got so much ambition to grow as an actor and stories to tell, I still have that eagerness and energy and drive and hunger. But yeah, I think Sweeney Todd would be a killer part. Oh, and Bobby in Company, I have to play that! Although it’s great to see what they’re doing now with Rosalie [Craig], that will be very good.
* Dates for Seth Rudetsky’s Broadway @ Leicester Square Theatre are Friday 5 (9.30pm) and Saturday 6 October 2018 (3pm and 9.30pm).
* Called “a global actor for a global time” by The New York Times, Iranian-born, Canadian-raised Tony and Olivier Award-nominated actor and singer Ramin Karimloo recently starred on Broadway in the new musical Anastasia, originating the role of Gleb Vaganov, a new character written for the stage adaptation and tailored to his talents. In the West End, Ramin rose to fame in starring roles in both of the West End’s longest-running musicals: Les Misérables, where he’s played Jean Valjean, Enjolras and Marius; and The Phantom of the Opera, where he played Raoul and became the youngest person ever to play The Phantom. Ramin was then hand-picked by Andrew Lloyd Webber to originate the lead role of The Phantom in Love Never Dies, the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. For his performance, he was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical.
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