INTERVIEW: Tiffany Mann lives out her dreams in ‘Be More Chill’
Photo: Be More Chill stars, from left, Katlyn Carlson, Tiffany Mann and Lauren Marcus. Photo courtesy of Maria Baranova / Provided by BBB with permission.
Be More Chill, the new Broadway musical that has gathered a cult following, tells the story of a teenager who takes a special pill in order to become more chill. It’s a science-fiction comedy that speaks to being a young adult in difficult times, and Joe Iconis’ music and lyrics have captured many new fans.
The cast includes Will Roland, George Salazar, Stephanie Hsu, Jason Tam, Jason SweetTooth Williams and Tiffany Mann. Mann is an alumna of Broadway’s Waitress, and in Be More Chill she plays the character of Jenna Rolan.
“I, like many New York actors, got an email from my agent saying that there was a project called Be More Chill, and I was being seen for the role of Jenna Rolan,” Mann said in a recent phone interview. “So I prepared and went into my audition, into one of the warmest audition rooms I’ve ever been into, and behind the table was Joe Iconis and [director] Stephen Brackett and other members of the creative and production team. I went and did my thing, and here we are.”
Be More Chill began as a regional theater production, and then it opened off-Broadway last year. The Broadway transfer is the icing on the cake for this little show that could. For Jenna, it’s particularly special to create an original role in an original Broadway show.
“It is always an artist’s dream to be able to create something,” she said. “I love the music. The first song that I heard from it was ‘The Smartphone Hour,’ and I loved how free it was and how clever the lyrics are. … And then as I got a chance to grow with the piece, seeing how our audience members see themselves represented in the musical, is incredibly rewarding.”
For the character of Jenna, Mann and the creative team needed to fill in a lot of the backstory because there was not a lot of information on the written page. This meant she had the freedom to explore.
“You kind of see her around, and you see little glimpses of her,” Mann said. “So me and the creative team we got a chance to really collaborate to bring her to life. I looked at a lot of gossip columns to see how they moved and talked, and looked at videos on YouTube, and saw some of those bloggers and things like that. I’d imagine Jenna Rolan has a YouTube channel of her own and has all the hottest gossip on there. I kind of drew from those personalities and things like that, and let her be.”
It has been interesting for Mann to step back in time and play a teenager. That’s the case for most of the cast who are reliving their days in high school.
“I definitely am one of the ones who has to step back a number of years and revisit some of those feelings that are quite universal, and some of those teenage feelings stick with us as adults,” she said. “We just learn how to cope with them. They don’t necessarily go away when you turn 18 or when you turn 20 or 30 or whatever. They’re still there. We have just learned to acknowledge them, and let them go or to deal with them, and so to step back into the shoes of a teenager, especially today, who has to deal with social media and the scrutiny of their peers and people who they don’t know on the internet, was really an exciting thing to sink my teeth into. And I learned a lot from one of my younger nieces about lingo on the internet. I really, definitely felt a lot older because I didn’t even know what ‘stan’ meant [stalker + fan]. My nieces and nephews have really schooled me on the kids of today versus when I was back still saying things like ‘yo.’ We didn’t have cell phones and things like that. It was really, really cool to step back into the mind of a teenager and sort of undo some of the adult things.”
For Mann, performing on Broadway, in both Waitress and Be More Chill, has been a dream come true. As a teenager, she always wanted to perform on a professional stage, and now she is living that dream eight times a week.
“This is absolutely a dream come true,” she said. “Little teenage Tiffany, this was her wildest dream. To be able to create a role and to have my fingerprint on the life of such an incredible show … to have people of color in this role and to have a plus-size woman center stage getting to dance her life away, it’s really, really incredible, and I don’t take it for granted that I get a chance to do something that every artist dreams of doing.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Be More Chill is now playing an open-ended engagement at the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway. Click here for more information and tickets.
