If you\u2019ve seen a touring production of \u201cLes Miserables\u201d in the past six years, there\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ve seen Nick Cartell perform.<\/p>\n
Since 2017, the Valley native has played the role of Jean Valjean in the national tour of the blockbuster musical, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.<\/p>\n
Though he\u2019s currently on tour, Cartell is taking an evening to perform for his hometown crowd. \u201cAn Evening With Nick Cartell & Friends\u201d will take the stage at Herberger Theater Center on Friday, Oct. 24.<\/p>\n
Cartell recently spoke with Phoenix New Times about his local theater roots, playing an iconic role and what to expect at the Herberger. <\/p>\n
How did you get involved in theater?<\/strong><\/p>\n We went to see a school field trip production of \u201cCinderella,\u201d and I believe it was a Childsplay production where it was adults performing for kids. It was kind of the first time I had ever seen (people do) what I did for my parents and for my family, which was perform little shows and stuff like that. I was actually seeing it on stage in front of me and I was like, \u201cWait, that\u2019s actually a job? I can do this?\u201d<\/p>\n I was bitten by the bug, and the next year, I auditioned for Valley Youth Theatre. This is when Valley Youth Theatre didn\u2019t have a home \u2026 and we would perform the shows in high school auditoriums on the weekends. And that was where I got hooked.<\/p>\n So I started performing at Valley Youth Theatre and then went into high school and performed shows at Chaparral. I went to college at Arizona State University, and I have my degree in theater performance at ASU. I performed at Greasepaint Youth Theater and like I said, Valley Youth and Phoenix Theatre, and then went off and performed in Tokyo for Tokyo Disney, and in New York and across the country in a couple different tours, in \u201cLes Mis,\u201d and now I\u2019m coming back and it\u2019s so exciting.<\/p>\n Tell me about some of your Broadway credits.<\/strong><\/p>\n So I made my Broadway debut in \u201cJesus Christ Superstar,\u201d the revival of \u201cJesus Christ Superstar\u201d in 2012, and then I went on to do \u201cScandalous,\u201d which was written by Kathie Lee Gifford of the \u201cToday\u201d show and \u201cLive With Regis & Kathie Lee\u201d fame. And then I went into Cirque du Soleil\u2019s \u201cParamore,\u201d which was the first show that Paramore ever did (on Broadway). I did not do any of the acrobatics, I really just did singing and performing and acting, so I can officially say that I ran away to the circus with Cirque du Soleil.\u00a0<\/p>\n And then, I\u2019ve done the national tour of \u201cThe Phantom of the Opera\u201d and of course, the national tour of \u201cLes Miserables,\u201d which I\u2019m currently in as we speak.\u00a0<\/p>\n Your role is so demanding and so emotional. What is it like to play Jean Valjean?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s the role of a lifetime. And it is a beast of a role, and it\u2019s probably the most demanding role for a male-identifying character in musical theater. You\u2019re on stage for probably two hours and 45 minutes of a three-hour musical. You\u2019re singing most of the time. You\u2019re in fight scenes. You\u2019re having to lift people and carry people, and then on top of that, you\u2019ve got the emotional burden that comes with all of that, too. But it also is so rewarding. And it is something that also for me doesn\u2019t get old. I\u2019ve been playing the role for almost six years. I\u2019ve got over 1,500 performances under my belt. And I\u2019m still learning things about this character and about this role, and I think that is one of the things I treasure so much about being able to perform a role like this is: Still, after all this time, it\u2019s not stale, and I still learn things every time I step on that stage.<\/p>\n How do you not just break down in tears every single time you perform?<\/strong><\/p>\n There are moments where the emotion does take over, especially at certain times of year. I truly came to this \u2026 my journey to \u201cLes Mis\u201d began in 2017. \u2026 I was coming to it from a place of grief. The day before my final callback for the role, I had lost my mom to her battle with ovarian cancer. She passed away the day before. And so I had to go in that room with her support and with my father\u2019s support, knowing that they said, \u201cYou need to stay in New York. You need to see this through. This could be a life-changing moment for you,\u201d and it has been. So I had to think about the sacrifices she would make for me. That was the only thing I could relate to in some instances where Jean Valjean was talking about his adopted daughter, Cosette.<\/p>\n Those are the moments that still kind of hit me sometimes, and now I can think about my own daughter and the sacrifices I would make for her. I remember in 2022, we were remounting the tour after COVID, and we were getting it ready to take back out on the road, and the line that I have to sing in the show, right at the end, when I sing, \u201cShe\u2019s the best of my life\u201d \u2026 it still gives me goosebumps and chokes me up some nights, because it immediately makes me think of my little girl. \u2026 I think that\u2019s so exciting, that there are those days where this show can have that immediate response for somebody. And I think that\u2019s the thing that keeps people coming back to a piece like this. There\u2019s a reason that people come back to a show like \u201cLes Miserables,\u201d because not only is it the music \u2013 it\u2019s the story, and what it does to them emotionally, because it connects them to something bigger than themselves.<\/p>\n What can people expect at the Oct. 24 show?<\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019re calling it \u201cAn Evening with Nick Cartell and Friends,\u201d and that\u2019s what it\u2019s going to be. It\u2019s going to be a fun night where I\u2019m sharing stories of time on the road, but I\u2019m also bringing some of my favorite people that I\u2019ve performed with in the Valley. Kristen Drathman, Rusty Ferracane, and Stephanie Likes are all people that I kind of grew up with doing theater in Arizona in the professional realm. They\u2019re still people who perform in the theater there, so they have their own fan following, which I love. And it\u2019s a time when I can get back together with these folks. We\u2019re going to perform onstage together. They\u2019re each going to have a moment to shine separately. It\u2019s going to be a fun night. It\u2019s going to be relaxed. And we\u2019re just going to have a good time. There will be some laughter.<\/p>\n Of course, I\u2019m going to be singing \u201cBring Him Home,\u201d so nobody has to worry that that won\u2019t be on the hit list. Of course it will. And I hope that everyone will walk away feeling good and that they\u2019ve had a great night. Whenever I do a concert, I want you to feel like you\u2019re in your living room, having a lovely night. I don\u2019t want it to feel stuffy. I don\u2019t want it to feel like you\u2019re in a giant symphony hall. That\u2019s not what this is about. It\u2019s about me connecting with you. It\u2019s about you connecting with the music. And all of us having this moment together in this time and place.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAn Evening of Nick Cartell & Friends\u201d: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 24. Herberger Theater Center, 222 E. Monroe St. Tickets start at $52.50. Visit herbergertheatercenter.org.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019ve seen a touring production of \u201cLes Miserables\u201d in the past six years, there\u2019s a good chance…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":330356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,1589,1148,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-330355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-phoenix","12":"tag-theater","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115431997953003256","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}