Audiences of Broadway touring ‘MJ the Musical’ will ‘leave knowing that they learned something’ about Michael Jackson
For a while, it looked like Devin Bowles was set to follow in his family’s footsteps.
His dad and brother played football in college, his uncles played football in the NFL. Bowles himself played football and basketball growing up.
But like it does for many athletes, an injury put a pause on his on-field work. While recovering from surgery, Bowles was encouraged to join his high school’s choir. His performances with the choir inspired him to look into musical theater.
“I love to tell stories, and I love the transformation of it,” Bowles said. “I love the discovery of it. Then that grew into wanting to become an actor.
“Singing was something that I had in my bag, but acting is something I really wanted to grow into, so musical theater was the perfect medium for that.”
Roles in “Grease” and Marco Ramirez’s “The Royale” followed, with the same ambition and work ethic that helped him on the football field helping him on stage as he got bigger and bigger parts. After high school, Bowles studied theater in college. He then moved to New York and is now starring in the national tour of “MJ the Musical,” which runs Tuesday through July 13 at the First Interstate Center for the Arts.
“MJ the Musical” opens in June 1992, when Michael Jackson (Jordan Markus) and his team of dancers and musicians are preparing for the upcoming “Dangerous” world tour. Manager Rob (Bowles, who also plays Joseph Jackson) tells everyone to get in their places and warm up while Jackson shares new ideas for the tour with him.
At that moment, journalist Rachel (Cecelia Petrush) and her cameraman Alejandro (Anthony J. Garcia) arrive to interview Jackson. The singer shares both the highs and lows of his storied childhood and what it was like working with Berry Gordy (J. Daughtry, who also plays Nick) and Quincy Jones (Josh A. Dawson, who also plays Tito Jackson).
Rob and Nick then take Jackson to a news conference at Radio City Music Hall, where Jackson speaks about the tour and his hopes to raise $100 million for the Heal the World Foundation by Christmas 1993.
From there, Jackson shares more stories, and songs, with Rachel.
Erik Hamilton plays teen and young adult Michael, and Quentin Blanton Jr. and Bryce A. Holmes play Little Michael. Melvin Gray Jr. is the MJ alternate, and Austin Rankin plays Little Marlon. Jed Resnick plays Dave, and Anastasia Talley plays Katherine Jackson.
The cast also includes Michael Andreaus, Jojo Carmichael, Joshua Dawson, Croix Diienno, Zuri Noelle Ford, Ui-Seng François, Andy Golden, Jahir L. Hipps, Skye Jackson-Williams, Faith Jones, Jacobi Kai, Rajané Katurah, Rachel Lockhart, Michaela Marfori, Matteo Marretta, Kendrick Mitchell, Zion Mikhail Pradier, Tyrone Reese, Avilon Trust Tate, Charles P. Way and Brion Marquis Watson.
The musical features a book by Lynn Nottage and is directed and choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon. David Holcenberg provided musical supervision, orchestrations and arrangements.
In a full circle moment, “MJ the Musical” was the first musical Bowles saw on Broadway after moving to New York. Bowles said he instantly became a fan of the structure of the show, the choreography and the acting. He went on to see the show five more times, before landing the role of Rob and Joe Jackson.
Bowles had seven callbacks for “MJ the Musical.” Though he initially went in for the Quincy Jones/Tito Jackson track, Bowles was asked to read for the Rob/Joe Jackson track around his fifth callback.
After the sixth callback, Bowles was told he didn’t book the role. About a month later though, the creative team called him back in for one last audition.
“I was the only guy they called in so I had a strong feeling there was some fruit still hanging for me to grasp,” he said.
Bowles was right and has been playing Rob and Joe Jackson for two years.
Though “MJ the Musical” is without a doubt a jukebox musical, featuring Jackson and Jackson 5 classics like “Beat It,” “ABC,” “Wanna Be Startin’ Something,” “Bad,” “Thriller” and “Man in the Mirror,” from Bowles’ perspective, “MJ the Musical” is a play with music thanks to Nottage’s detailed book.
“There was a phrase that I got told, and I loved it ever since I was in rehearsal. ‘The way she’s written this script, there’s no fat on this bone,’ ” Bowles said. “There is nothing but strictly sirloin meat. It is cut perfectly. It is sliced perfectly. There’s so many innuendos and connections and play on words that if you really take time to listen to, you’re like ‘Oh my God, I didn’t catch that’ or ‘That makes so much sense.’ “
Bowles said actors can often get caught up in “How do I play this moment? How do I read into this?” when reviewing a script, but with a script by Nottage, who won Pulitzer Prizes for her plays “Ruined” and “Sweat,” a lot of the work is done for him. He doesn’t have to force the story to come across, he simply lets the “black ink on white paper” breathe.
In his dual role as Rob and Joe Jackson, Bowles said he spends more time as Rob but has more impactful scenes as the Jackson patriarch. The balance between the two very different characters keeps Bowles on his toes.
“They’re both original,” he said. “They both have different wants. They both have different needs. Honestly, the similarity that they have with each other is they both do love Michael. That’s their thing. They love Michael Jackson. They just go about it in different ways.
“Rob cares about the being. Throughout the show, Rob starts to become more curious of Michael Jackson’s being, his mental state, his actual human nature, as opposed to Joe. You’ll hear some of the lines in the show. Joe doesn’t really care too much about how you feel. He cares about the product. He wants you to be the greatest. He wants this to happen in this way, because he deems that he knows what’s best.”
Each role brings with it a tempo, a cadence, a sense of power. There is an urgency to both roles, with Rob being concerned about the upcoming tour and Joe, in flashback scenes, being concerned with getting the Jackson 5 ready to perform and work with Gordy.
Rob isn’t based on one specific person in Jackson’s life, but Bowles was able to review videos of the eldest Jackson speaking about his life with Michael and videos of the Jackson children speaking about their father. Bowles said Joe Jackson spoke as if everything bad in Michael’s childhood never happened, as if he knew what was best and that was that.
“They stretched me artistically in ways I never thought I could be stretched or expanded,” he said. “I’ve dialed into some physicality changes around these two roles, and it’s such a playground and such a recess of knowledge and exploration and discovery.”
Just as he balances playing Rob and Joe Jackson, Bowles also balances playing an antagonistic character like Jackson while also bringing a bit of himself to the stage.
Though he can’t draw from personal experience of being a father trying to make his children’s band successful, Bowles can relate to Jackson’s navigating out of fear, be it a fear of failure or a fear that comes when you’re unable to control the outcome of a high-stakes situation.
As he works with both characters, they, even after two years with the show, continue to reveal things about themselves to Bowles.
“I love the act of digging up more, going deeper, finding the depth, finding the buoyancy of whatever story I’m dealing with, and one thing that this role has continually done for me is showcase itself to me in a different lens that I haven’t seen before,” he said. “If I go back and read the script, I’m constantly having those light bulb moments of ‘Oh my God, I didn’t pick this up,’ or ‘This is a different nuance to whatever the case may be,’ so I’m still learning and growing with these roles and these people in the world that we built.”
The world of the musical is fabricated, but it’s based on a real time in a real artist’s life, an artist who has continued to inspire and intrigue years after his death. With “MJ the Musical,” Bowles hopes people can understand the human side of Michael Jackson.
“They’re going to leave knowing that they learned something about him that they may have not known, and that’s such a beautiful thing when you’re dealing with celebrities or people that we placed on high pedestals,” he said.