INTERVIEW: For veterans, ‘Rolling Thunder’ hits the right notes
Photo: Rolling Thunder features Cassadee Pope and Drew Becker. Photo courtesy of Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade / Provided by DKC / O&M with permission.
NEW YORK — The new musical Rolling Thunder, which uses well-known rock songs from the 1960s and 1970s, continues its run at New World Stages in Midtown Manhattan through Sept. 7. The two-hour show tells the tale of Johnny (Drew Becker), a young man who enlists in the military and heads over to the frontline of the Vietnam War. He’s surrounded by fellow troops and leaves behind concerned family members, and the tunes on the radio — everything from “Magic Carpet Ride” to “Gimme Shelter” to “Bridge Over Troubled Water” — serve as the soundtrack to his momentous, earth-shattering journey.
Becker is making his off-Broadway debut in the role. He’s an alum of the first national tour of Tootsie and the regional premiere of Anastasia. The process by which he joined the ranks at Rolling Thunder was a quick one.
“My process is kind of really fast,” Becker said in a recent phone interview. “I think I found out I got the show probably about two weeks before we even started rehearsals. … I got called into an audition for the show day of, very last minute. I think the casting director had my website or something pulled up, and they were in the middle of their audition day. And I had a shift at a restaurant that night, and so I had to leave in the middle of my shift and run two blocks, come and sing a rock song, sight-read and cold read. … Did that, and then had a final callback a couple days later, and then a couple days after that found out that I got the part.”
Rolling Thunder, which is directed by Kenneth Ferrone, is a brand-new show, so Becker had to conduct some research into the time period of the Vietnam War to get a better idea of Johnny’s journey. He read about the war itself, but also the socio-economics of the day.
“I knew a handful of the songs, and then there were a few that I didn’t know,” he said. “I love rock music from the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s. That’s something that I jam to on my own. That’s some of my favorite kind of music. I would say overall 50-50 split of songs that I knew down cold and then other ones that were new to me.”
Becker remembers entering the rehearsal room and meeting Sonny Paladino, the music director. They worked together on rearranging the songs in real time.
“So I get to sing ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ in the show, and we went into a room, just Sonny and I, to kind of find that arrangement by ourselves, just for an hour or two one day,” Becker said. “We all had one-on-one sessions with him where he would just collaborate with us to find our versions of each of these songs, so we kind of lucked out and had a lot of say in creative collaboration with Sonny, who was arranging all of our music.”
The veteran experience is one that Becker had a lot to learn about, but he also had some background information. The actor grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania, where respect for veterans is quite high.
“And there’s a lot of veterans and people who serve in those communities,” he said. “Johnny, the character that I play, is from a small town in Nebraska. He enlists himself to go over and serve in this war. I wouldn’t say it has necessarily changed my perspective on how I look at veterans, but it’s absolutely deepened my gratitude for everything that they do for us. Hearing about the stories, reading letters that people wrote, hearing from the soldiers … how they spoke, the kind of spunk they had in their voices, the fear that they had from being there, coming back with trauma, it was a really dark time and a really confusing time for a lot of people, so it’s extremely deepened my gratitude for everything that they do for us.”
Meeting veterans and thanking them personally have been two experiences that Becker has enjoyed about his time with Rolling Thunder. In fact, getting to know some of these audience members who have served is probably the memory he cherishes the most.
“Our demographics is mainly the Boomer Generation and up,” he said of the theatergoers at New World Stages. “I get to recognize all of the veterans in the audience at our bows every night, which is beyond special to me, and I don’t take that for granted at all. But every single show, people raise their hands, people who have served, people who are serving, family members of people who have served or are serving, every single show there’s a handful of people in the audience that are part of that community. It’s really special.”
Becker added: “There’s one guy during our first week of previews, I was talking to him after the show, and he gave me a hug that felt like it was five minutes long. He was in tears because his brother went over to war and served in Vietnam and didn’t come back, and he said that he felt like Johnny, the character that I play, was exactly like his brother and that for two hours he got his brother back for the evening. To be able to do that for people is unreal.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Rolling Thunder, starring Drew Becker, continues through Sept. 7 at New World Stages in Midtown Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
