INTERVIEW: Jamie Ballard goes from Harry Potter to Richard II

Photo: Jamie Ballard, who was performing as Harry Potter in London’s West End, plays the title character in a new audio drama of Shakespeare’s Richard II. Photo courtesy of artist / Provided by Glenna Freedman PR with permission.

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For actor Jamie Ballard, the coronavirus pandemic has been professionally difficult, but he has taken everything in stride. He was starring in the West End in the acclaimed and mega-successful production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, bringing to life everyone’s favorite boy wizard (who is actually a grown man in the new stage adaptation), but that all stopped in mid-March when COVID-19 caused theaters around the world to shutter.

Now, sitting on the sidelines and wondering when he’ll get back to his London gig, Ballard has had more time for side projects, including acting in the title role of another famous play: Richard II by William Shakespeare, brought to life as an audio drama thanks to the folks at Shakespeare@ theater company.

“It’s been a tricky one,” Ballard admitted in a recent phone interview. “We saw the theaters closed around the country on the 15th of March, so it’s day by day, one day at a time to see how things pan out. Everyone is working very hard to see where we go from here. … It’s crazy times.”

When Ballard was working in the West End in those final days of performances, he and his fellow cast members knew the writing was on the wall. The city of London, along with the rest of the globe, was preparing to halt all group and crowd settings, especially theaters, concert halls and sports arenas. It was only a matter of time before the Broadway-sized theaters of the West End followed suit.

“Things were ramping up around the country with regards to the pandemic,” he remembers. “We knew it was only a matter of time before the show would have to shut down for a bit. It was heartbreaking obviously because it’s such a wonderful show that spreads so much hope and love and deals with such incredibly important issues that so many people take solace in — in moments of difficulty and hardship and depression and all these kinds of things. It’s a real beacon of love and hope and friendship and family, that it’s such a heartbreaking thing that that had to stop.”

Ballard didn’t want to predict when West End theaters might open again, a time when he will once again don the lightning birthmark and assume the role of Harry Potter — a role he played for nearly two years. Maybe the end of 2020? Maybe the beginning of 2021? Right now, most agree it will be one of the last areas of society to reopen.

“It was heartbreaking not knowing if that was the final time that we were all going to be doing this play,” he said. “I’ve made such wonderful friends on it, both in the cast and stage management and front of house and the crew. It was a really upsetting moment that this could have been our final performance, but we have real hope that it’s not going to be.”

When he was in quarantine, he received a call from his good friend Sean Hagerty, artistic director of Shakespeare@, a classical theater company in Jersey City, New Jersey. They were going to move their operations online (Shakesepare@ Home) and produce Richard II as a free audio drama. Would Ballard be interested? Quick answer: yes.

“We were at drama school together, at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in the UK,” Ballard said of his connection to Hagerty. “We did a two-year acting course, and then he had to go back to the States. He worked as a director … and created this theater company and did a production of Hamlet last year with a friend of mine from the same year that we were at drama school, Jonathan Forbes, a wonderful actor. I think he was the only non-American in the cast, and the plan was to then go on and do another production of Macbeth. And all these plans were happening, and then obviously COVID hit. That couldn’t go forward, and so Sean was like, what can we do to still bring accessible interpretations of classic works to a new audience as we had been doing.”

Ballard has never performed in Richard II, but he remembers offering a monologue from the title character during his days in drama school. When he was studying the text, he fell in love with the Bard’s play.

“So he said, ‘Would you be up to doing it?,’ [and] I obviously jumped at the chance,” Ballard said. “But immediately became absolutely terrified at the scale of what I had just said yes to because we weren’t going to be in a rehearsal room together as you normally would be with the play. Everything was conducted over Zoom, and obviously we’re hours apart. It was trying to get schedules to work, and other actors were in L.A. or New York, others in London. So it was a real logistical feat to get us all together.”

During these Zoom rehearsals, Ballard and his fellow company members found Shakespeare’s language to be quite beautiful, which made the challenge of pulling off the high drama that much riskier. He needed to get this right for the recording, which will be delivered to audiences July 1.

“I think it’s one of his most incredible pieces and one of his most beautiful, but also one of his most difficult,” he said. “The early part of my career was pretty much almost entirely Shakespeare. I was taken in by an incredible Shakespeare teacher in Bristol where I trained at the Tobacco Factory. The artistic director saw me at drama school and very kindly took me on, and I did a few seasons with them. That led me to then go and work at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and so Shakespeare became sort of my bread and butter early in my career, culminating in playing Hamlet, which was a part that again I never thought I would play but always hankered after. That sort of came at a very important and difficult time in my life, and it was a real catharsis. Again, I was surrounded by wonderful actors and friends of mine from drama school.”

He added: “In fact, Phil Buck, who is in this Richard II that we’re doing with Sean, played Horatio [in Hamlet], and so to have one of my best friends playing my best friend was just wonderful. It was at a time I just lost my mother, so it was a real watershed into my life. But, no, I had never played Richard II, but having discovered the play at drama school, it was one I had always wanted to try. I had always been slightly scared of it, but that’s always the best place to be.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

Shakespeare@ Home presents Richard II as a free audio drama. Audiences can download or listen to the production by visiting the theater company’s official website, starting July 1.