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GREAT PERFORMANCES: How did this TV special, JOSH GROBAN IN CONCERT, come about for PBS?
Josh Groban: Well, even back when we were first starting to make the CD, really as far back as when I was in high school, I always dreamed of one day doing a show on PBS, because I had grown up watching so many great PBS performances and being inspired by them. All the shows on GREAT PERFORMANCES -- "Sunday in the Park with George" was the first musical I ever saw and it was on TV, it was on PBS, with Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters, and then "Sweeney Todd" with George Hearn and Angela Lansbury. It really kind of introduced me ... to a whole new world out there that I wanted to be a part of. So, when we were making the CD and the CD was done and we were trying to build a fan base, I knew that eventually -- I had hoped, at least -- that I would do a television concert at some point in my career. And I hoped that it would be on PBS. I never thought that it would happen at 21. It was just something that I always kind of knew that I would do, and so the entire process of it was just such a joy to do because it was like a dream come true.
GP: Can you tell me a little bit about the process of doing the PBS special? From the idea to the actual taping.
JG: Well, I had never done a TV special before. I've had to build a team around me to make an album, but I've never had to work with a team that had so much more to think about than just recording music for an album. We were essentially recording an album, but we were doing it with production trucks and video cameras and an audience and a stage. Filming a TV special is extremely difficult because you're on a budget, you're on a time limit, and the pressure is on to get it right, right away. Not to mention the pressure is on for me, to have something in my hand that I'm going to watch for the rest of my life and make sure that it's something that I am absolutely proud of. So the planning stages were many, many months, in terms of who I wanted to have on the show and what kind of instruments I'd like to have and what the setup would be and how to make it look unique and how to make me appear on stage the way that I'd like to do a show. I wanted the theatricality, but I didn't want it to go too much in that direction. But on the other hand, I'm not the kind of performer that stands on stage with an orchestra behind him for the whole show.
You know, it was great, I had a great, great team around me, between my manager Brian Avnet and my stage director Danny Ezralow, who also created the show with me, and with lighting by Simon Miles. Just so many amazing people came on board, and we all sat at a big table and we said, "What about this?" "Oh yeah, that would be great," "What about this?" "That'll be amazing." It was just lots of late-night coffee shop talks ... then the real tough part started. The stuff that I'm not really used to, the budget meetings, and a lot of roadblocks were put up and we had to work around them and it made finishing the process, and finishing it far beyond anything I would have ever imagined, all the nicer.
GP: You mention "Sweeney Todd"; wasn't that a show that you've always wanted to do? You were in a production of it at Interlochen Center for the Arts, right?
JG: That's true; it's so funny. Interlochen wound up being one of the greatest camp/arts school experiences that I've ever had. And it all started because shortly after seeing that TV special of "Sweeney Todd" I got word that that particular arts camp, which I had found out was one of the best, was putting on "Sweeney Todd." And I said, "Oh my gosh, I want be Sweeney, that's it. I want to be Sweeney." I was 15 years old [and] part of me knew that there was no chance that I would be able to tackle that role or even get that role, because, you know, the lead roles go [to] the seniors. Well, I went over there and I auditioned my butt off and got Broom Sweep #3, or something like that, in the chorus, and I learned real, real early on, and it was such a valuable lesson for me, to love a show and to put all of your energy into it, whether you're Broom Sweep #3 or Sweeney Todd. And so I was on stage for five minutes, and every other minute of the show I was sitting at the wing listening to the whole show and just loving it. I had a love for theater from a very early age. I went back the next year and I got a larger role, and ... I needed to work my way up that ladder and take voice lessons and take acting classes and take whatever training I needed to be the best performer I could be.
GP: Do you have any aspirations to do more musical theater?
JG: Yeah, oh sure, at some point in my career. I was young then for the high school productions, and I'm young now for the professional productions. I want to get a little older and let my voice mature and put a little age on me before I ever audition for a Broadway show or even opera, way, way down the line. We'll see, but for now I'm doing exactly what I want to do.
GP: Any thoughts about returning to Carnegie Mellon?
JG: The thoughts, honestly, about returning to Carnegie Mellon in particular, are probably not realistic because of its location. It is an amazing school but Pittsburgh is not, unfortunately, a place where I can be right now. And also, my entire class is graduating now so it would be kind of a bummer to go back to that campus without any of my friends. So, if and when I go back to school, it would probably be somewhere in L.A. or New York.
GP: What's it like to be dubbed "The New Boy Wonder of Voice" by THE NEW YORK TIMES, at 21?
JG: Wow, that newspaper article basically made my head explode. That was such a nice, nice article -- and the comments by Barbara Cook and by some of the great people of New York -- it just meant the world to me. I was very, very flattered.
GP: Do you have any plans to go on tour?
JG: I am probably going to do a full-length tour, in March. We're already setting up a 15- to 20-date tour that is looking really, really good. We have some amazing theaters lined up. It's great. I think, but I'm not sure about this, that we are going to put tickets on sale on Valentine's Day.
GP: I'm sure your fans will love that.
JG: Yeah, I think we are expecting a pretty quick sell-out. It's going to be very exciting for me because I'm going to be able to do what I did for the special, but I'm going to be able to do it over and over again for new audiences, and I have the luxury of being able to make it live. It's not [going to be] recorded, so I can relax about that a little bit more.
Interview by Samantha Gleisten for GREAT PERFORMANCES Online conducted in November 2002.
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