A Conversation with Jacob Fowler
It’s a pleasure to welcome Jacob Fowler to The Sondheim Hub this week. Jacob is currently serving as standby for Jack, Rapunzel’s Prince, and the Steward in the Bridge Theatre’s acclaimed production of Into the Woods. We talked about what it means to step into one of Sondheim’s most intricate ensemble machines from three different angles, the vertiginous thrill of “Giants in the Sky,” the tightrope walk of “Your Fault,” and the responsibility of being movement captain. Along the way, we discussed vocal craft, ambition, commercial theatre, and much more. Our conversation begins below:
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It’s great to meet you. We’re speaking in early February, and you’ve now appeared onstage in all three of your Into the Woods roles. How does it feel to be part of the intricate mechanism that is this show, from three different vantage points?
It’s been great to tick off all my parts. They’re all so different, and that’s what’s really nice. I’ve been on as Rapunzel’s Prince this week. The Steward is very fun and camp, and you can ham him up if you want to. Jack is obviously the biggest part I cover, and that was the first part I went on for. In fact, the first time I ever stepped on the Act 2 stage, complete with lighting and everything, was during my first show as Jack.
Into the Woods is a very dark show—not just thematically, but literally. So when I first ran on with Kate [Fleetwood], when she drags me on for “Your Fault,” I was tripping everywhere, over brambles and everything.
Jack’s awe when he runs forward into the spotlight to sing “Giants in the Sky” must have felt quite true to you then, that first time especially…
Absolutely. I’m the dance captain on this show, so I do show watches to make sure that the show stays in its current state. Every time I watch it, I just get absolute goosebumps when Jo [Foster] runs out to do “Giants in the Sky.” This was before I’d been on. I remember thinking, not only does it look spectacular when Jo’s there, but I thought, I really hope I get the chance to do that one day—which I did.
It’s such a special song. And what makes that moment even more special is the fact that it’s the first time the entire cast are on stage, because they’re not for the Prologue. It’s the first time that all 16 other people out of a 17-person cast are there, and I felt that when I first ran out. I thought, God, this is crazy. I know everyone’s behind me, and then you hear them all leave just before you start singing the main part of the song.
I don’t believe in fate, but coincidentally, exactly 10 years ago I was performing Into the Woods at school. I was 15, and I was playing Cinderella’s Prince. And I’d never heard of Sondheim. I knew about Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Disney musicals. But I had a friend in the year above me, and he was telling me that Sondheim is the absolute Holy Grail. And then slowly, as we did Into the Woods, I realised, gosh, this is like nothing I’ve ever heard before. It really opened my eyes.
I have to ask you about “Your Fault.” How does it feel to step into that number, when you don’t necessarily have that nightly muscle memory of being inside it?
“Your Fault” is the one where I was really like, gosh, if I mess this up, I mess the whole thing up. That could be absolutely crazy. With something like “Giants in the Sky,” it’s fine in a way, because I can save it and it’s just me. But if it’s “Your Fault,” it could go incredibly wrong. Thank goodness it didn’t.
I remember Kate Fleetwood said to me, just as she was about to drag me on for my first “Your Fault” and we were crouched behind the woods, “This is just us. Just stay with me.” No pun intended. And it’s true: as long as the five of us are connected, and as long as we’re playing off each other, then that’s all that matters. I remember thinking, this whole company is just so kind. Thank goodness she said that to me just beforehand.
And when you finish “Your Fault,” you get to watch Kate for three and a half minutes sing “Last Midnight,” which is just the most spectacular thing I’ve ever heard in my life—and not only heard but seen.
Twice in “Your Fault,” Jack says “Wait a minute—” and follows it with something fast. The first one is, “Wait a minute, though—I only stole the gold to get my cow back from you!” And on maybe my fifth show as Jack, when it got to that point, my life flashed before my eyes. It all happened within a millisecond. I so nearly sang, “Wait a minute, though—I chopped down the beanstalk, right? That’s clear.” That’s the second one, and that would have been a nightmare. I would have had to go, “Wait a minute, though—I chopped down the beanstalk… from you.” I was sweating profusely—but everything went fine, thank goodness.
You mentioned being dance captain on this show too. What does that role look like day to day, week to week, on a show like Into the Woods?
I called it dance captain, but my official title is movement captain—which makes sense for this show. However, the role is exactly the same. I will lead the physical warm-up at 6 o’clock. In a show like this, that’s less about getting everyone to do star jumps. It’s a lot more about stretching and, as arty-farty as it might sound, being one as a company—because Into the Woods is such an ensemble piece.
We have an associate director, Georgia Green, who’s fantastic, and she show watches once a week as well. She will give the cast narrative notes and directing notes, whereas I focus purely on physical blocking and movement. But if Georgia can’t do a show watch, I will take notes for the whole thing. It’s less about what’s happening, because no one in this cast really needs those kind of notes at this point. It’s more for things like, “Oh, there was a bit of silence there. Maybe that line could come in sooner.” Things like that. But I rarely do that.
I’ve probably watched the show 10 times now, and I never get bored of it. This cast is just so strong. I come back at the interval and I’ll have a new favourite song. Like today “It Takes Two” is my favorite song, and then another day “Hello, Little Girl” will be my favorite song. The material is just so rich in substance and in depth. It is so special to be a part of it.
Stepping back a bit, I’d love to know what your own journey with Sondheim’s work looked like between that school production of Into the Woods and now.
I’ve always been fascinated by the actor’s relationship to Sondheim. I still love commercial theater; I still love Andrew Lloyd Webber. I actually wrote my dissertation at drama school on Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber. I think the title was something like, “To what extent has Sondheim’s artistic integrity been at the expense of his commercial success?” I find it fascinating, because I love both. The Sondheims of the world, the Jason Robert Browns, and the Adam Guettels—they coincide with things like Heathers and Phantom of the Opera for me.
It’s been my absolute dream to do a Sondheim. After that dissertation on Sondheim, I did my first job, and then a very commercial TV show. My first ever professional gig after that was Kings of Broadway at the Palace Theatre, and I sang “Marry Me a Little” there. And I saw Company nine times when I was at drama school, including the very final performance. Sondheim was in the audience. I think Company is the show that really threw me over the edge. I just was in awe. The cast—Jonny Bailey and Patti LuPone and Rosalie Craig—I just couldn’t believe it. On the last day, on that last Saturday, I saw both shows. I saw Follies at the National as well—and, still to this day, for the acting, singing, and dancing, and for the all-round musical production, that’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen.
Everything feels like it’s led to this production of Into the Woods. I’ve had a fortunate career so far in that I’ve played lead roles, really. But when this opportunity came through as a standby, I was like, “Absolutely. I would kill to work at the Bridge, on a Sondheim, with this creative team.” Fortunately I’ve had the chance to do so many shows onstage now, but I still wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
I met James Lapine! He happened to be standing right next to me, all of us standing in a circle, and he was saying how much Steve would have loved this production. And in the rehearsal room, I’ve learned so much from watching Kate Fleetwood and Katie Brayben and Jo Foster and Jamie Parker and all these people work on stuff, and watching Jordan Fein direct. It’s just been invaluable.
So my journey with Sondheim has never dulled. You wouldn’t look at my career so far and go, “Yeah, he’s a Sondheim actor,” whatever that means. But I’ve said to my agent for the past five years that this is what I want to do. And so this is hopefully my next step into that world.
Can you speak a little about your approach to vocal production in a Sondheim show compared to a role like, say, JD in Heathers? Do you feel that difference physically?
I grew up as a singer, and then thought, oh, I’d like to do musical theatre, so I’d better start acting. So every role I’ve ever done before—including JD, or Lucas, or even the Prince in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella—I’ve always been vocally led. And Sondheim is the opposite, of course. Sondheim always said he’d much rather an actor over a singer. So much of Jack’s material in particular is so fast, I almost don’t really have a chance to think about my voice in the same way. It’s been so refreshing for me, because each performance stays where it is that night.
Obviously, vocal health is an absolutely primary concern, no matter what, even if you’re doing a play. But on this show, I’ve just not had to think about it in the same way. With JD, I had to wake up every day and think, I wonder if I can sing it today. And actually, what’s crazy is Jack sings higher than JD. The hardest bit for me as Jack was, “I wish… More than life… More than anything… More than the moon…” That “the moon” goes up to an A. And JD sings an A-flat—although that’s belted.
I’d love to know, looking at the variety of your career so far, and this being your first foray into Sondheim, what you’d like the next ten years to look like. Do you have dream roles or specific goals that you think quite actively about?
I do. I’ve always had three roles that are my dream, and they are the Phantom, Javert, and Sweeney Todd. I like a darker character. But they’re of course all slightly older men. I wouldn’t play any of those now. I’d also love to do Anthony—and I would love, actually, to play Bobby in Company. Again, I’m still too young right now for him, but if we’re talking ten years, I’d be 35, which is the perfect age. Anything Sondheim, to be honest, I would just love. Even Tobias, who I’m possibly too old for, if he was played in the same way as Jack in our Into the Woods, and I shaved and cut my hair a little bit…
And then, because I come from more of a pop-y background, there’s also that whole aspect of things that I would love to do more of, like Legally Blonde. I also love shows where everyone’s got their own unique voice, like Girl from the North Country, which combines that Bob Dylan music with a Conor McPherson script and that play-like aspect. Same with Standing at the Sky’s Edge. I love shows where it’s not like, oh, you need to belt an A-flat and sound like every other tenor, or whatever. And that’s one of the things I love about this production of Into the Woods.
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