‘Moulin Rouge!’ tour brings new Spokanite Andrew Brewer back home
When “Moulin Rouge!” rolls into town, Andrew Brewer will get to do something many performers dream of after months on the road: sleep in his own bed.
More importantly, he’ll get to see his wife, Keyonna, who is from Spokane, and their infant son, as the family now calls Spokane home.
About a year ago, Brewer and his wife left New York to put down roots in Washington. The family lives in the Garland District and while on paternity leave, Brewer was able to spend time with his son while exploring different parks and restaurants.
“I’m slowly building a list of all the places that I’ve gone, that I’ve enjoyed and that I can get to and really settle in,” he said. “Then at the same time, while also trying to make some ties to the theater world in Spokane.”
He will make his first introduction as the Duke of Monroth in “Moulin Rouge!,” which opens Wednesday and plays through Sunday at the First Interstate Center for the Arts.
“Moulin Rouge!” features a book by John Logan and music from various artists, including Adele, Rihanna, Pat Benatar, Kool and the Gang and the Police. The musical is based on the film of the same name, which was directed by Baz Luhrmann and written by Luhrmann and Craig Pearce.
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Though Brewer sang in church and as part of Vacation Bible School, he did not have a lot of theatrical opportunities growing up in a small town in Indiana. Going to high school in the basement of a church (he graduated with six people), Brewer’s only real chance to perform came through a summer program for the schools in the county.
After high school, he attended Indiana State University with the goal to be a math teacher. One sideways step took him to audition for the school’s choir, another led him to major in music. Yet another had him transferring to Indiana University for its musical theater program.
“It has been, not unconscious choices, but these opening doors that I just said yes to and kept going that have opened a lot of things that I didn’t really think possible when I was a kid,” he said.
Looking back and seeing how much participating in the Lewis and Clark High School theater program affected his wife in a positive way, Brewer wished he had the opportunity to participate in theater sooner, but he is certainly making up for lost time.
Along with several regional and Off-Broadway productions, Brewer has performed on Broadway in “Moulin Rouge!” and “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.” He has toured with both shows as well.
When he started his journey with “Moulin Rouge!” in 2021, Brewer was asked to submit a video audition. Six months later, he was asked to submit another tape. He had an in-person callback on a Monday and a second callback on Sunday.
That Saturday, Brewer had gone to a wedding in Florida, so he flew into Newark Airport bright and early, made the hour-and-a-half journey home to Queens so he could change only to turn back around and head into the city for his audition.
Still cautious of COVID-19, Brewer had to take a PCR test, which meant he had to wait for an hour until he was cleared. When he was good to go, Brewer walked into the audition room thinking he would be auditioning for the casting team, maybe someone from the directing team.
This audition ended up being the final callback, and the producers and the entire creative team were waiting for him. Even worse, they were an hour and a half behind on lunch, so they were itching to take a break.
“You’re trying to brush through the audition as quickly as possible, and as soon as I finish, they’re like ‘OK, everybody can go to lunch,’ ” he said. “They’re all racing out, and I’m running to the elevator to ‘Please get me out of here before they all get on here.’ And of course, I rode out on the elevator with the entire creative team and trying to figure out what to say after I just auditioned for their musical. I think I said ‘So the music’s really good, huh?’ “
Something about his audition, and the elevator ride, no matter how awkward it felt at the time, sealed the deal, and Brewer has been with the show ever since.The Duke of Monroth is more fleshed out on stage than on screen, so Brewer said he has more of a character arc to play with. Having understudied Christian on Broadway, Brewer can see how Satine is torn.
The Duke looks good on paper, with enough money to take her away from the club and treat her to a life of luxury. On the other side, there’s Christian, who can only offer her love.
“She realizes what she’s missing, so now she’s torn between what the Duke can do for the club and her friends and help to take care of them all versus her needs and what it would take for her to feel fulfilled,” Brewer said. “It’s trying to make sure that my character is viable enough at the beginning to be a believable foil before it starts to turn and you realize why the Duke is such a bad option.”
As the Duke, Brewer gets to sing a variety of songs, including an Outkast tune and a Rolling Stone medley. There are more than 100 years of music in “Moulin Rouge!,” he said, ranging from a song popularized by Nat King Cole in the 1910s to songs by Lorde, Lady Gaga and the Postal Service.
“The way they’re used makes them so special in a way that it isn’t really just like ‘Oh, we’re singing a song,’ ” Brewer said. “There’s story and there’s comedy and there’s drama and there’s all these things that are built into a pop song that you have never thought about. That’s what makes it so cool and keeps it interesting every night and gives me something to play with.”
The range of emotional moments in “Moulin Rouge!” has also kept things interesting for Brewer, who has performed the show more than 1,100 times. The trio of Christian, Santiago and Toulouse-Lautrec lean into the bohemian values of truth, beauty, freedom and love, so there is a lot of that in the show, plus flashy sets and big choreographed numbers, but there is also drama and tragedy.
If something is sad, Brewer said, it cannot only be sad. If you want there to be a sad moment, there must also be an element of light and joy in that moment.
“When we talk about people we’ve lost, perhaps, generally, we still will find a way to bring up something good about them, and that’s why the loss hurts,” he said. “You need both sides of this thing to work. You need to laugh if you’re going to cry. You need a little bit of all of it, and that’s what this show has.”
The cast also features Arianna Rosario, Bobby Daye, John Cardoza, Jahi Kerse, Danny Burgos, Kaitlin Mesh, Jerica Exum, Amara Berhan, Rodney Thompson, Renee Marie Titus, Jeremy Gaston, Gabriella Burke, Runako Campbell, Rhys Carr, Darius Crenshaw, Mateus Barbosa Da Silva, Nicolas de la Vega, Jordan Fife Hunt, Nathan Fister, Logan Gray Saad, Collin Heyward, Charizma Lawrence, Katie Lombardo, Meghan Manning, Amanda Mitchell, Luke Monday, Kenneth Michael Murray, Elyse Niederee, Luke Rands, Maia Schechter, Adéa Michelle Sessoms, Jeff Sullivan, Carmella Taitt, Jordan Vasquez and Jerald Vincent.