INTERVIEW: Tony nominee Brad Oscar takes nostalgic trip in ‘Broadway Bounty Hunter’
Photo: Brad Oscar, a two-time Tony nominee, stars in Broadway Bounty Hunter. Photo courtesy of Matthew Murphy / Provided by Vivacity Media Group with permission.
A friendship that has blossomed over the years helped Brad Oscar, Tony nominee for The Producers and Something Rotten!, land a role in the off-Broadway premiere of Broadway Bounty Hunter, which plays through Aug. 18 at Greenwich House Theater in New York City.
That friendship is the one Oscar has with the show’s composer, Joe Iconis, the “it” guy of the musical theater world who saw his beloved Be More Chill land on Broadway this year.
“I got attached to the production because I have known Joe Iconis, who wrote the score,” Oscar said in a recent phone interview. “I’ve known Joe for a while now actually, and he got in touch with me a couple months ago. They were doing the New York production, and he asked me if I would like to be involved. And then I read it and said, ‘You bet.’”
What Oscar read is a hilarious musical comedy about a woman of a certain age who gives up on show business but lands a bounty-hunter job involving drugs, badass bad guys and kung fu in the jungles of South America. It’s a tongue-in-cheek homage to ’70s films, with a hint of Quentin Tarantino thrown in for good measure. Joining Iconis on the creative team are director/choreographer Jennifer Werner and book writers Lance Rubin and Jason SweetTooth Williams (who just finished up his performance in Broadway’s Be More Chill).
“I’ve known Joe for a long time,” Oscar said. “First of all, I love Joe. I have great respect for Joe. I’m a big fan of Joe’s. I think that as far as the younger composers who are writing for American musical theater, I think Joe has so much integrity and knows how to tell story through song and emotionally and all that stuff that you need. I know we’re gravitating toward accessible music, whether that means pop or rock or something that seems more universal, as opposed to strictly musical theater music. I think that a lot of pop composers and a lot of people who write in that vein try to write musicals and dramatic pieces for musical theater, but they often don’t seem to understand the actual economics of what it means to write a song for a character in a story in a play and what the arc of that means. Anyway, that’s a long way of saying that I’m a big fan of Joe’s, and I’ve always wanted to be able to work with him because I never have.”
Over the years, Oscar has heard Iconis’ material, including The Black Suits and his work on Smash, and the actor actually directed an evening of Iconis songs for a special performance involving a mutual friend. That’s how the two first met, and Oscar knew he needed to connect with the composer somehow.
“I’ve been very blessed to have a really great career, and I know that half of what excites me always about a project is the people I’m working with, hopefully people that you like and respect and admire,” he said. “That always means a lot to me, especially as I go along now and the older I get.”
When Oscar was offered the role of Mac Roundtree, he loved what he was reading on the page. Plus, there was the opportunity to act alongside Annie Golden, Alan H. Green and Emily Borromeo, among others.
“I had heard a little bit of the score, but I sat down and read the actual piece,” said Oscar, who has also appeared on Broadway in Nice Work If You Can Get It and The Addams Family. “I thought it was really hilarious and really fun. I loved the role. It’s different for me. It’s not the kind of role I get to play all the time. I’ve played a couple bad guys, and it’s always fun to do so. And this one, in his own special way, is quite delicious in that way for an actor. So, yeah, I was immediately drawn to it. I think the whole idea of the piece is great. The fact that it pays tribute to and tells its story in a way that harkens back to all those ’70s grindhouse, blaxploitation, kung fu [films].”
At the same time that Broadway Bounty Hunter is a trip down memory lane, it also has a contemporary feel and has something poignant to say about this central female character, played by Golden. The first big number, after all, is called “Woman of a Certain Age.”
Perhaps what attracted Oscar most of all to the show is that it’s original, and that’s saying something in this theatrical landscape saturated with jukebox shows and movie-to-stage adaptations — many of them top quality, but still based on another medium’s source material.
“Let’s face it, an original musical these days is a rare breed because ultimately commercial theater is all about the dollars and cents,” Oscar said. “Anything that is going to bring people into the theater by just hearing the name of the play or hearing the name of the person who is starring in the play — one of those two things ideally these days is very important. … We have pieces that break through because they are really good pieces of American musical theater, and that’s great. But, yeah, I think it’s very hard to get an original musical done these days, to be produced professionally like that, even more so off-Broadway. The economics of off-Broadway are so harsh because the spaces are so small.”
Broadway Bounty Hunter, which began its life a few years ago at Barrington Stage Company in Massachusetts, received mostly positive reviews, and Oscar reported that audiences are falling in love with the songs and characters on stage.
“The people love it, but you need to gain some traction,” he said. “I have a great respect for this posse of producers that came together to get this done, and although it was not perhaps the success we hoped it would be, I believe the show will have a life because I hope the show will be recorded, which is very important, of course, to have that document because what we do is so ephemeral. It’s gone once the show closes; that’s it. You have your memories. You have pictures and some b-roll, but ideally there will be a recording because I think it’s a terrific score. And it’s a great story.”
Oscar said his memories of this production will be proud ones. He loves the passion of the piece, and his character in particular has been a meaty role for him to sink his acting teeth into.
“This is a slightly heightened reality because of the way we’re telling the story, so there’s a certain style that you need to find or play in that way,” he said. “We all sort of found that as well, that the characters are a little dialed up. I don’t want to give too much away because there is a twist in my character, but, yeah, what excited me was the fact that my character is spoken about before we see him. They say, ‘Mac Roundtree, he’s a real bad mother, drug-pusher and a pimp daddy.’ Those descriptions alone are enough to entice and intrigue me.”
He added: “There is something so fun about playing the bad guy, and again I don’t look at it as I’m playing the bad guy. This is who this guy is. This is what he wants and he needs, and even though he pretty much knows he’s an asshole, he doesn’t care. … It’s fun to play someone who has a slightly more ridiculous agenda.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Broadway Bounty Hunter, featuring Brad Oscar, plays through Aug. 18 at the Greenwich House Theater in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
