It’s been more than 20 years since Robert Westenberg has been on the road for a musical tour, but Neil Diamond was enough to pull him back out.
The touring production of “A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical” is running at the Fox Theatre March 11-16. Westenberg – a Broadway veteran who starred in the original productions of shows like “Into the Woods” and “The Secret Garden” – plays Neil Diamond (Now), while Nick Fradiani plays his younger counterpart, Neil Diamond (Then).
Rough Draft Atlanta spoke with Westenberg ahead of the show’s run about his decision to get back onstage and what it’s like being back on the road after such a long time away. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
This is your first big tour in quite some time. I know you took time off and directed at Missouri State University. Could you talk about that shift in your career, and what made you want to come back to the stage?
Robert Westenberg: Back in 2004, my wife Kim [Crosby, who starred with Westenberg in the original production of “Into the Woods”] and I and our kids left New York and moved to Missouri, which is where my wife’s family lives. I went explicitly to teach and to direct. I did that for almost 20 years, and then at the end of that 20-year period – I did some acting in the meantime – I got a phone call or an email from [casting director] Jim Carnahan’s office, casting for “A Beautiful Noise” and asking me if I’d be interested in auditioning for the for the play. This was the original Broadway production. I sent them a self tape, and they gave me a callback, and I went to New York and auditioned for [director] Michael Mayer. At the end of it, they said it’s not going to happen for the Broadway show, but we want to keep you in mind for the future. I said, great! I went back to teaching and directing, to my family.
They contacted me not last November, the November before last November, and called me out to New York again to have a session with the music director. I met with Sonny [Paladino], and they eventually offered me the job of playing Neil (Now) for the tour. I just had to make a decision. Now we live in Colorado, to be near our grandchildren, and I also teach out there as well, the University of Colorado in Boulder. I decided it would be an opportunity that would be stupid to pass up, because it’s such a great role, such a great show. How many opportunities like that come for somebody my age? So, we went for it, and that’s why I’m doing this now.
What about this role made you want to take this on? Were you a big Neil Diamond fan beforehand? What was your relationship to him?
Westenberg: I was a massive Neil Diamond fan. You know, I was about 15 when he was becoming a superstar, and his music really resonated with me. I adore his music. So there was that, that was sort of built in.
When I auditioned for it originally, they faxed me the last scene of the play, and that was my audition scene. It’s really well written. It’s very spare, it’s very muscular, in terms of there’s nothing excess to it. It’s a beautiful written piece. That’s all I could get a hold of, because I couldn’t get a hold of a full script, just that one last scene. I knew from that scene it was going to be a quality project. It intrigued me to the point of saying yes to the audition and yes to the possibility of doing the show.
When I got called back for the music session a year ago, I got a chance to see the show. And I mean, I just –I love it! It just rocks. It’s profoundly good. You know, it’s a memory play, it’s a Neil Diamond concert. It’s a really powerful journey of an older man trying to find his identity again. It’s got all kinds of elements to it that make it sort of transcend what you think of as the jukebox musical genre. It’s so much more than that. As soon as I saw it, I thought – I want to be a part of this project.
It’s interesting, looking through your career onstage. You’ve done a ton of different styles of music, from Stephen Sondheim to the more classical stuff. I feel like “A Beautiful Noise” fits into an entirely different genre. Has that been an interesting adjustment for you, or has it been sort of seamless?
Westenberg: It hasn’t, really. I haven’t even thought of it. It’s music – it’s a song that you have to sing. There’s the slight style adjustment that you have to make, but I think you have to make that with any show, any musical, right? There’s always going to be adjustments that you have to make for that particular director’s vision of the play, for that particular role in the play, and all of that. For me, it was fairly seamless, I think. That would be a good word for it.
How has it been readjusting to being on the road?
Westenberg: That’s an adjustment! The last time I toured was 2003, I think, with “The Full Monty.” I did that for like, a year and a half, I think. But I was younger then. You know, it’s like riding a bike. It was an abrupt transition at first, picking up and packing up, and flying or whatever to a new city, and unpacking and then turning around and packing up again – over and over and over again. So there’s a displacement issue that you have to deal with. But you learn to make wherever you are home.
I think the thing that helped this time around, that made it much easier than I did it the last time, is the fact that there’s Airbnbs, there’s Uber, there’s Zoom, there’s FaceTime. Those elements really help to make it so much easier and so much more comfortable. When I land in a city, I’ve done all my prep work, and I usually have an Airbnb waiting for me. I have a full kitchen. It’s just easier in terms of me maintaining my health and my lifestyle and my diet, and maintaining my relationship with my family, and my children and my grandchildren. I can have more regular contact with them, not in person, but face-to-face. There’s a loneliness factor. I will confess to that. But it’s manageable.
Going back a bit, you took that break from the stage and directed for so long. Do you think your time directing has affected how you approach acting?
Westenberg: Oh, yeah, I think it has. I think after directing for so many years, I see the project more globally, in terms of how all the different components interact with one another, and how critical they all are, and what my particular position is in it, and what I need to do to fulfill my responsibilities – which is what I expect as a director, for that particular position. That helps, and also teaching acting has informed my acting a lot, because 20 years of teaching and articulating the process for young artists has ingrained in me an ethos in terms of my approach to the work, and my respect for the profession and respect for the process, that I think has definitely informed the intensity of my approach to the work.
Over that stretch of time, did you have a favorite show you directed?
Westenberg: Oh, gosh, there’s so many. I loved directing “Violet.” I was in it, in New York, and then I got to direct it. I loved directing “The Secret Garden.” I directed that twice. Those are two real favorites. I loved directing “Killer Joe,” oh my god – I’ve done a lot of dramas and straight plays, so “Killer Joe” was one of my favorite plays to direct. “The Crucible,” I loved directing that. I did a lot of Shakespeare directing too.
To round this out – and I’m sure you’ve been asked this before – but what is your favorite Neil Diamond song? And is that different from the song you most like performing onstage?
Westenberg: One of my favorite songs is “Cherry, Cherry.” I just love that song. It’s absolutely just [got a] classic rock pulse to it, and it’s exciting every night. I mean, I can honestly say every song in the show is a great Neil Diamond song. Every single song in the show. But “Cherry, Cherry” always stands out to me. And if you want to go in the other direction, away from the high energy, pulsating pop stuff, it would be “Solitary Man.” I just think that’s a stunning, beautiful, moody, bluesy piece that really resonated with me as a young man.
Tickets for “A Beautiful Noise” can be purchased on the Fox Theatre’s website.