The hit Broadway musical, Wicked, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year! We recently had the chance to chat with Broadway cast member Jordan Litz. He currently portrays the character, Fiyero.
Check out the interview below!
SH: Tell us about how you got the role of Fiyero in Wicked, and eventually got the role fulltime on Broadway. What was the process like?
JL: Well, I went out for the first time in 2017. I was actually in New York specifically for a Wicked EPA. I was living in Orlando at the time, and I flew up to New York for about 24 hours just to go to this EPA. It was my second audition in the city ever. And it was mainly just to get experience with the audition process. I hadn’t really ever lived in New York. I hadn’t auditioned for anything in New York, so this was just an opportunity to get in the room and see what it was like to audition for a show of this magnitude. I sang for an assistant of an assistant casting director, and I felt like it went terrible, but fortunately they seemed to like what I did.
About four months later, they asked me to come in to read for the understudy of Fiyero on the tour. That was in November. This initial audition process was very long. I went in, they gave me the sides a week before the audition. I read for the casting director, Craig Burns. He liked what I did, so he asked me to come back the next day and do it all again for the music director. I think it was Brian Perry at the time. They asked me to stay for the afternoon to read for Lisa Leguillou, who is the associate director and do it all over again. And then at the end of that, Craig asked me if I would come back a week later and do a movement call with Corrine, our associate choreographer.
So, it was a lot of auditions, a lot of callbacks. I always looked at that initial audition process as sort of their initial screening, just because I had nothing on my resume at that point. I was brand new, basically to musical theater. I had only done Disney World type performing and Community Theater up until that point. I ended up not getting it that time, but Craig called me the next day and he was very supportive and encouraging. He was like, “You had everything that we were looking for. It needs a little bit more time to marinate.”
It wasn’t until a year later that I came back to the city for another audition with Wicked, and I did not get it again the second time. Then, finally, six months after that, I had moved to New York with my wife Julie, and I was in the middle of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular when they asked me to come in and read for Fiyero, the understudy Fiyero track on the tour again for the third time. This time I had a really good feeling, that it was going to be mine because it was just me. Up until that, it had been me and another guy or me and two other guys, but this time, it was literally just me in the room. Sure enough, they offered me the understudy role.
I joined the company in January 2020. As we all know, a month and a half later, everything crazy went down, COVID happened. Everybody got shut down. In my case, I was actually not too worried about it because Wicked wasn’t going anywhere. So I felt like I had great job security in that. So, I just hung out for a year and a half, tried to stay healthy and stay sharp. During the pandemic, the principal Fiyero, Kurt Hansen and his wife had a child. They asked me to cover his paternity leave when we went back on tour. So, when we relaunched the tour in August he performed as the principal Fiyero for two weeks. And then I took over for six. Then he came back, finished up his contract for, I want to say, three or four weeks. Then, they asked me to take over permanently November 17th, 2021. I performed as the principal Fiyero all the way until February, 2023. They officially offered me the role on Broadway in February, a week before I left the tour. But there had been grumblings and talks of me taking over on Broadway back in October.
My manager had said, “Hey, you’re done in February with the tour. The plan is to move you to Broadway. Nothing’s official.” He told me that back in early October. At that point I was like, “Are we celebrating? Where are we exactly?” He’s very good about keeping my feet on the floor and very level-headed, so we didn’t celebrate anything until we had the official offer in February. Between October and February, I had the music director on Broadway and a bunch of different people associated with the Broadway company basically congratulating me and asking me when I started, stuff like that. So, I kind of had a good feeling that I was moving to Broadway all that time, but nothing was official until February. Then I joined the company a week ago, a week ago today.
SH: Is there a song in Wicked that you enjoy performing the most?
JL: “Dancing Through Life” is so iconic. It’s the song that gives me the least amount of stress because it’s a pretty easy sing for the most part. Yes, you’re dancing around and stuff like that, but it’s not super high. It’s just got a lot of character, a lot of swagger, and it’s just fun every single night. I’m on stage with the entire ensemble, so I get to connect with so many different people throughout that song. So, that’s really special.
I will say, when “As Long As Your Mine” really hits right, it is such a cool song to sing. When your voice is in tiptop shape, and you and your Elphaba are locked in on the harmonies, man, the overtones are flying off your voice and the audience is into it, and it has the potential to be such an amazing song. So, “As Long As Your Mine” is on, it’s definitely my favorite, but “Dancing Through Life” is consistently a blast every single night.
SH: What’s your take on “Dancing Through Life,” in terms of its place in Wicked as a musical? Also, would you say that Dancing Through Life has any sort of social commentary outside of Wicked?
JL: Ooh, that’s a good question. I’ve never thought about really that aspect of it. The thing that I love about Fiyero is that “Dancing Through Life” is his introductory monologue. I almost don’t think of it as a song. It’s so wordy that it feels like a monologue. You speak sing it so much, that it feels like you’re talking through the song rather than actually singing it. You’re introducing who the character of Fiyero is. It’s so easy to play him as a jerk, and then it’s impossible to win the audience back at that once you set him up that way. So, the thing that’s fun about “Dancing Through Life” in the way that I think of Fiyero is that you’re trying to get everybody to have a good time. That is Fiyero’s MO. He’s never trying to be mean to Elphaba with that. Maybe in the line, “The Driver Saw Green and Thought it Meant Go,” he wants her to laugh with him. He thinks that’s funny. Those kinds of lines aren’t meant to be a cut to her. He’s like, “Hey, laugh with me. This is funny.” He doesn’t think anything of her being green. You have to take that kind of personality into the song as well. Otherwise, he just comes across too arrogant, too much like a jerk, and you’ve lost the audience and you can’t win them back by the end of the show and no one is going to be rooting for Fiyero to end up with Elphaba. So, you really have to make that song about a party. I want you guys to have a good time. I’m going to have a good time. We need to just loosen up. I think that is the overall idea behind “Dancing Through Life.”
As far as social commentary goes, I honestly hadn’t really ever thought about that aspect of the song. I mean, I guess we always talk about the idea of the fact that we tend to work too hard as a society these days, and we drill ourselves into the ground with work and studying and school and stuff like that. Maybe Fiyero is there to remind us that you have to have leisure time and remind everyone that you have to take a second for yourself and just enjoy life. So, from a social commentary standpoint, maybe that’s the point of the song.
SH: Is there any part of Fiyero as a character that you identify or connect with personally? What about other characters you’ve played onstage, does he have anything in common with them?
JL: I would say in Act One, Fiyero was very hard for me to find at the beginning. Growing up, I was never the super cool guy. Yes, I was an athlete. Yes, I always sung on the side and I had certain characteristics that could be considered cool and all of that popular type stuff, but I was never really in the in-crowd. So for me to connect with that aspect of Fiyero in Act I, especially “Dancing Through Life” through Ozdust, that was really hard for me to find at the very beginning. Whereas in Act Two, Fiyero always just came so naturally for me. With the connection that he feels with Glinda and Elphaba, I’ve always been good at connecting with people on stage. That’s always been my strength because I feel like I can just channel who I am. I feel like I’m a pretty supportive, empathetic type person. So, Act II Fiyero is that for me. It’s always been very easy to find that, but in Act I, that suave, cool dude was a challenge for me for sure.
As far as the similarities between Fiyero and a lot of my other characters, I have tended to play the leading man type characters in my time in musical theater. I was Tony in West Side Story, I was Lieutenant Cable in South Pacific, Eddie Birdlace in Dog Fight, Rapunzel’s Prince in Into the Woods. All of those types of characters are very much under the same umbrella of the attractive singing kind of guy. So, all of them have their own little things that make them unique, but there’s definitely a through line between all of those characters as far as a type goes, for sure.
SH: How is the chemistry in the cast of Wicked? It seems like you’ve made a lot of connections with other performers.
JL: Yeah, no doubt. I’ve been fortunate to have some incredible witches on tour, and now on Broadway. I’ve only been on Broadway for a week, so I don’t know what it’s going to be like a year down the road. On tour, it was easy to make those connections with people and feel like a family, because you live your life with these people. You see these 35 to 50 people, and that’s it. You go from city to city together, experiencing things and going out to dinners and doing adventures with just those people, because those are the people that you have around 24/7. Here on Broadway, you have your Wicked family, but then you also have your own family. My wife is here in New York with me. Some of my best friends in Brooklyn are here and all of these people who I wouldn’t normally see while I’m on tour, I can hang out with now. So, the need to spend as much time with your Wicked family isn’t quite as dire as it is on the road. Now, with that said, I see the Wicked people every single day. And there’s something about going through something as tough as what we do eight shows a week, bringing this story to the masses, that bonds you in a way.
With my witches, I’ve been so fortunate to have Talia and Allison to start out with. They were unbelievable. Then, Lissa and Jennifer were truly two of my best friends that I’ve ever made on the tour. Now, I’m excited to get to work with Alyssa and Mackenzie and also the Standbys. I worked with MK four times this week, so I feel like I’m going to develop really special relationships with the standbys as well. The tricky part is, I’ll tell you this, you have to actively seek out these relationships, especially with Elphaba, because you’ll be shocked to discover I never interact with Alphabet offstage in the show except for about 10 seconds before As Long As You’re Mine. Otherwise, we do not see each other offstage ever. So, in order for me to develop that friendship, I have to go into her dressing room as she’s getting green, like 15 minutes before show and say like, “Hey, how you doing? What’s up? Tell me about yourself.” I have to go and make that connection with her. Otherwise, I literally would never see her except for 10 seconds before “As Long As You’re Mine,” but it’s a fun sacrifice to make to go and hang out with her while she’s getting green and discover who they are.
SH: What about the 20th Anniversary of Wicked? Are you happy to be a part of the Broadway cast during such an exciting time?
JL: Oh my gosh! Heck yeah, man! It’s such a dream. When I first saw Wicked, it was I think the national tour at San Francisco, and I specifically remember seeing Fiyero’s character and seeing how much he danced. I was like, “Well, I will never do this role, because I’m not a dancer. This is not what I do.”
Now, to be here not only as the Broadway Fiyero, but as a momentous cast, the 20th anniversary cast Fiyero, that just seems so unreal to me. I just really hope that I can bring it and do it justice for the entire year. It’s truly so special.
SH: We’ve talked a lot about Wicked, but is there anything else you’re working on or you have coming up that you’d like our readers to know about?
JL: Well, my wife is pregnant with our first child. She’s due September 25th. So there’s not a lot of room outside of Wicked and baby prep for other ventures and things like that, because I do want to continue advancing my career and opening up new doors and finding new performing opportunities, but I also do want to have a life outside of performing. A big part of that is spending time with Julie and spending time with our future daughter and my dog, and also my friends here, and continuing to foster those friendships and relationships. So, outside of Wicked, there are auditions and things like that that occasionally come across the table, but nothing big and official outside of the 20th anniversary Wicked cast.
Jordan Litz can be found on Instagram @litzjordan. Get your tickets to see Wicked on Broadway today!
