Show The Breakdown with Robbie, Ep Writer: Steven Sater - Oct 13, 2020
Steven Sater from 31:00, discussing Jonathan’s audition for Spring Awakening:
“Jonathan sang Left Behind, and I cried. I think probably I was not the only one. And he couldn’t hit the notes, at that time. He knew it beautifully, but there were questions about whether or not he could sing the role. But he was so right for the role, and he had such magnetic, matinee-idol chemistry with Lea, so that there was no way we were not going to cast him, despite real concerns from the music department that… I’m not talking about the quality of his voice, I’m talking about his range. Melchior is a range-y role, because he has a lot of falsetto.
Our music director said definitively he cannot sing the role. And it was like, “Well, we’ll see.” We didn’t have to adjust the role. I rewrote the role of Melchior for Jonathan, but we didn’t adjust the music. There were qualities Jonathan had that I didn’t have in Melchior as I had written him and I… He is Melchior, so I wanted him to score, I wanted the play to score, so I did rewrite it for others maybe but most pronounceably for Jonathan.
(Interviewer: It must be easier when there’s someone who is right for the role.)
Steven: He was but he wasn’t, so I had to rewrite it for him, so it fit. It’s easier to have a voice to write for, but it’s easier when someone just fits.That wasn’t entirely the case with him. That was the case with John Gallagher, for example, with just the role as written. With Jonathan Groff, he had such enormous sincerity and such heart, and he was less the kind of ironical intellectual, although he has those qualities and they remain in the role, but we played to his strengths in the character.