SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Feb. 27, 2024 (Gephardt Daily) — Fans of the King of Pop can get their fix this week as “MJ: The Musical” arrives in town.
The show plays at the Eccles Theater in downtown Salt Lake City for eight shows from today, Tuesday, Feb. 27, until this Sunday, March 3. Tickets are available here; more will be released as the week goes on, so it’s worth checking back if you don’t find the seats you’d like.
Created by Tony Award-winning director and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage, the show features more than 25 of Michael Jackson’s biggest hits. The piece aims to go beyond the singular moves and signature sound of Jackson, offering a rare look at the creative mind and collaborative spirit that catapulted him into infamy.
The multi Tony Award®-winning new musical centers around the making of the 1992 Dangerous World Tour, which premiered on Broadway in February 2022, and was set to open in the West End in just over a week’s time, on March 6. The current tour kicked off in Chicago in August 2023 and will go through Sept. 8, 2024, with Roman Banks in the title role.
Banks is an actor and musician best known for his historic run as the first BIPOC actor to portray Evan in “Dear Evan Hansen” on Broadway, after attending an open casting call for the show. Banks went on to guest star as Howie in “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” on Disney+, closely followed by his role in TikTok’s first-ever commissioned livestream musical, “For You, Paige.” Banks also released an EP of original music in 2020 called “Days.” Gephardt Daily chatted with Banks over the phone from the show’s tour stop in San Francisco last week.
The 25-year-old actor, from Atlanta, Georgia, originally auditioned for the Broadway production, for the role of Middle Michael, who portrays the star from when he left the Jackson 5 into the “Off the Wall” era. Though Banks was offered the job, he recalls turning it down to star in the “High School Musical” series.
Banks has said he was first introduced to the Jackson 5 because of his mom, who was a fan, and he used to do the MJ dance moves when he was a child. We asked him if he had any premonition or feeling that he would one day play the King of Pop.
“No, oh my God no, absolutely not,” he said. “I didn’t think that was a possibility at all. I didn’t grow up dancing, so I was shocked when… I just remember seeing the show, and the person I was with when I first saw the show, I leaned over and I was like, ‘I could never play that role.’ I hadn’t danced in five years before I got the audition. I really, really did not think that was a possibility for me.”
We also asked Banks about his time playing Evan Hansen, and how stepping into that role prepared him to play Jackson.
“Playing Evan was a challenge as an actor and singer, but specifically as an actor,” Banks explained. “It’s basically a play with music, and that was something I loved about the show. I love telling stories and I love telling important stories and being able to speak on mental health in a show that was so popular and you know, was so well received. And also just for me, how did my Evan behave and how did he see the world, or the things that he would be feeling in order to tell that story? You know, it caused me to look deeper into my whole humanity, even though I didn’t struggle with anxiety myself, like, what are some of the ways I could bridge that gap between myself and this character who had quickly become, I guess, an iconic character on Broadway. That made me realize how to close the gap between myself and somebody who on paper I might not be like, but I felt like I knew Evan’s heart.”
He added: “When it came to playing MJ, I wanted to look into my own humanity in the same way and what are all the ways that myself and this person, what are the ways we’re similar, and what are the ways we’re different? How do I bring out his humanity by tapping into my own? And that was my real goal. So much went into Michael as Michael Jackson, the persona, and the entertainer, and the humanitarian, just the icon, the superstar, but he didn’t open himself up to a lot to the media, because of how overwhelming it was for him. We’re not left with too much after he’s gone, but I wanted to just do whatever I could to make you feel like you are watching a human being on stage. And not just like an entertainer or a spectacle or a caricature of this person. So I think that’s how my story with Evan helped me to look more into the heart of Michael, not so much the superstar that he was.”
We also asked him what the audition process was like; it eventually came down to a boot camp with himself and four other actors.
“I was unemployed at the time, so thankfully, I was able to just like practice, nonstop for the audition, get the choreography down as much as I could,” he said. “I hadn’t danced in so long and I was looking at the choreography and I was like, oh my gosh, how on earth am I supposed to do this? But I have to try, you know? My thing is, especially when I’m auditioning in groups, is I just need to show the team, one, how hard I can work, and two, I’m not going to be outworked. Because if there’s ever something I really want to do, and I know that I’m right for it, like, I don’t want to; if for whatever reason I don’t get the job, I don’t want to like sit with myself afterward and be like, I could have worked a little harder. To me, that’s how you really lose the job if you know you could have done more, and it’ll always be could’ve, would’ve, should’ve. Any time there’s something I really want, that’s kind of my feeling towards it. But otherwise, I’m like, if it’s working it’s working, but with MJ, I’m like, I gotta shift into high gear with this one.”
We also asked Banks how, with his workload in the show, how he keeps himself not only physically but mentally and spiritually fit when he’s on the road.
“Yeah, I mean, that’s something I’m still in the process of really nailing down, because it really is a difficult journey,” Banks said. “Difficult to be in a new place so consistently, especially when I really didn’t grow up moving very much, I’m very used to settling in one given environment, so there’s that aspect of it, and the climate and you know, a lot of places we’ve been in are very rainy and so we haven’t been able to explore the city as much as we would want to. The schedule is pretty… I only do six of the eight shows [per week] but it’s still a pretty rigorous schedule doing a role like this, and it changes over time. There are things that hurt now that didn’t hurt one month in. But then there are things that are a lot stronger six months in that I can kind of breeze through, so it’s something I’m still figuring out.
“That’s part of mental health; we don’t have all the answers. There is a part of being an actor that’s seeking answers and reaching out, so yeah, that’s the part that I’m exploring right now as I look at the next, you know, essentially we’re halfway through the tour now, so the next six months, it’s like what do I need to do with my body, with my mind, to make sure I can do this? And I think that’s an ever changing, adaptive answer based on what’s going on in the world and what’s going on in my personal life, what’s going on in my body, and so I’m just really trying to listen to myself, and reach out when it’s appropriate. It’s a delicate, delicate balance.”
We also asked Banks how it feels, in both “Dear Evan Hansen” and “MJ: The Musical,” to play role models, and the importance of that responsibility to him.
“I think for me, you know, Michael was my musical hero,” he said. “He still is a musical hero; one as an artist, but two, as a Black man who lived in the face of such adversity, and to directly challenge the mainstream media and to push not only yourself but your very art form to new heights and new possibilities, and then to continue to do that your whole career, that is so inspiring to me, and so motivating to me. I’m now living in a post-Michael Jackson world where he broke down a lot of those walls and barriers and I can just enjoy the aftermath of them. And then now there are new barriers and walls up but I mean, a lot of the work, the hard hard work has been done for us; color barriers, exposure and racism in the media, to an extent.”
Banks added: “So, for me, I look at the ways he inspired me, and for me that was about being excellent. And acting in a field that exemplifies his passion for his work so that it’s palpable and obvious, and nourishing to those who might get the opportunity to enjoy it, regardless of whether they’re artists and not. So that’s the mindset to my performance, you know, something I love to do, so let me do it with all of what I am whether you’re an artist or whether you’re a contractor or physician, like, I think great art moves. So if I can just focus on providing great art, I never know who I’ll be inspiring. That’s what inspired me to do theater was seeing myself in a role on the stage, and going, oh, I walk like that, or talk like that, or I could aspire to do something or aspire to tell a story in that way or inspire an audience in that way.”
We asked Banks finally if he has any specific bucket list roles when the tour is over. “You know, I say hopefully it’s being written,” he said. “Another dream role is Aaron Burr [in ‘Hamilton.’] But I don’t know if that’s a dream role any more since I don’t know how much sense it makes for me to take on something like that at this point in my career. You know, I would love to come across a perfect role and be like, oh, this is the one. This is the one I can take to the moon. Michael and Evan have been dream, dream roles and I don’t want to stop that train.”
For more information on “MJ: The Musical,” and for tickets, click here.
