INTERVIEW: Daniel J. Watts is ready to ‘Jam’ at Webster Hall

Daniel J. Watts, star of Broadway and television, will bring his spoken-word show back to The Studio at Webster Hall for a special performance called The Jam: Only Child. The deeply personal piece, which includes spoken word poetry, music and dance, will take place Sunday, July 30 at 8 p.m.

Watts is well known to New York theater audiences, having performed in Memphis, Motown the Musical and a little show known as Hamilton. However, his most recent projects have taken him from the stage to the television screen. He was seen in HBO’s Vinyl and will also be featured in the upcoming TBS series The Last O.G. with Tracy Morgan.

For The Jam: Only Child, Watts will be joined on stage by DJ Duggz, aka Preston Dugger III, who also performed in Memphis and Motown the Musical.

Watts has performed these Jams for a while, but this latest incarnation will be deeply personal. “This is a little more closer to home than it has been in a while for me,” Watts said in a recent phone interview. “They’re always personal, but it’s been a little more generic. This is kind of the trip that Daniel has been on for the last year or so, kind of noticing his patterns and his roadmaps that no longer serve him.”

A friend actually inspired Watts to write and perform in this new Jam. They were working together at a writing residency in Philadelphia, and his friend asked him when the next Jam would be.

“I said, ‘Oh, I think I might hang it up for a little while,'” Watts remembered saying. “He said, ‘OK, interesting.’ And then a week later, he called me and said, ‘Hey, you can’t do that.’ I was like, ‘What do you mean, I can’t do it?’ He’s like, ‘You can’t do that. You have to do the Jam, so get to it. You have something to say, I’m sure.’ And then I was like, ‘Yeah, I guess I do have something to say.’ And then that was it. I started putting it together.”

The name The Jam actually comes from Watts’ great-grandmother. She used to make jams from scratch, but there were always too many jars for her refrigerator. So she would share the jams, simply giving them away. That’s what Watts believes he is doing with his words.

“So I was in Aladdin in Seattle, and they cut my part and then didn’t have anything else for me to do,” he said. “So while I was there is when it kind of started coming together. I was like, I should do an evening, and maybe I should add music to some of these poems. Or maybe somebody can dance to it. It was like a jam session. … Oh, my great-grandmother used to make jam. I could share this like she did. It kind of just came together like that.”

Audiences can expect The Jam: Only Child to have a mixture of spoken-word poetry, storytelling, music and dance. Sometimes Watts even changes the piece during the actual performance. It all depends on the audience and what is going on in his life at the time.

“Some things are directly word for word poems,” he said. “There’s also music, hip hop, some R&B. This particular Jam only features my DJ, so there are no other musicians. … Preston and I met when he replaced me in Memphis, and then I went back to Memphis to swing. And that’s when we got close, so this is back in 2011. So it’s about six years, and then we were in Motown together. Then he started DJ-ing, and I added him to the band.”

The success that Watts has found continues to drive him professionally. He is a man who is living his dreams and expressing himself artistically.

“I had to slap myself the other day because it’s easy as an artist to be like, what about, what about, what about,” he said. “You forget about the things that you’re doing because a lot of times it’s about what’s next as opposed to what’s now, and I had to stop that, and really look around and remember like, oh, right, I’m living in New York City. And I’m acting on a TV show, and I used to be a dancer in the ensemble of Broadway shows. So, yeah, I’m definitely living my dream. I’m performing in Webster Hall for the fifth time. What? Yeah, it’s kind of surreal when I really think about it.”

Watts’ next project is The Last O.G. with Morgan. TV viewers can expect hilarity and shenanigans but also a real conversation about the hardships of going into the prison system and coming back to society. “It’s hard enough just for inmates just to come out with that convicted box that they have to check, but also the world changes so much depending on how long you’re in,” he said. “So this guy was in for 15 years. He comes out. The girl he was in love with is with someone else. … His entire neighborhood is gentrified and new, so it does a very good job at bouncing the funny with the real.”

One of Watts’ career highlights is when he performed in the Broadway company of Hamilton. That show is still a top draw in Midtown Manhattan, and performers seemingly give up anything to join the cast. Watts’ tenure in the show almost didn’t happen.

“It’s interesting,” Watts said. “Hamilton originally came for me at a time when I was ready to transition out of the ensemble and do more work. I’m thankful that it came back around so that I can say that I did it. … I did Whorl Inside a Loop, and I did this TV show called Vinyl. I wouldn’t have been able to do both of them had I been in Hamilton the first time around, but someone got hurt. And because I had the knowledge that I did, I was one of the first people that they called to come help out during the injury. It’s funny how things work. You have to go do the things that you want to do. Everything comes back around. Everything comes full circle.”

When Watts presents The Jam: Only Child, he’ll come full circle again.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

Daniel J. Watts will present The Jam: Only Child Sunday, July 30 at 8 p.m. at The Studio at Webster Hall. Click here for more information and tickets.