It’s not every day you see a Broadway musical where a con man posing as a corn doctor makes you laugh for two and a half hours… and maybe even tear up over a corn chip. But that’s Shucked, and actor Quinn VanAntwerp has been in on the fun since the show’s first reading. Now on the national tour as Gordy, VanAntwerp shares what it’s like to build a Broadway hit from the ground up, take it across the country, and keep audiences laughing in every city.
A veteran of over 3,000 performances as Bob Gaudio in Jersey Boys, he also talks about the lessons learned from nearly a decade in one of Broadway’s biggest hits. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Watch the full conversation in the video above or on our YouTube channel.
I’ve heard nothing but good things about this show. From the time it started on Broadway to now, everybody says that they walk in and its nonstop laughter.
Quinn VanAntwerp: It’ll be four years since I first did like my first reading of this. And it’s one of those shows that I still have a hard time describing to people exactly what they’re in for.
It was the funniest script I’ve read in years. It has great music. It’s just like a great night at the theater. And it’s a show that sneaks up on you, all of a sudden, you’re like, “why am I tearing up at this corn chip?”
It’s one of those shows where you will laugh for two and a half hours. It just wears you down with fun and heart and kind of getting back to a simpler set of values that we can all get behind.
When we opened on Broadway, we didn’t know if we were going to be a hit or if we were going to close the next day. And there was just something that the audience was kind of thirsty for.
I haven’t seen the show yet, but you play a kind of con man. Are you like a like a Better Call Saul, Harold Hill con man?
Quinn VanAntwerp: I’m a I’m a sleazy version of Harold Hill, a Florida man version of Harold Hill.
It’s kind of a fable where the corn of this town starts dying and so they have to venture out and try to find some help. And Maizy [Danielle Wade] finds help in the big city from Gordy, who I play, who’s posing as a podiatrist. She thinks I’m a corn doctor. And so, she brings me back and I try to kind of swindle the town out of some valuable rocks that I find there.
It’s a really fun part. It’s kind of half Harold Hill, very Music Man-esque, if you will.
You’ve been in the show since the beginning. How fun is that to be on the ground floor of creating this big Broadway show that turned out to be a hit?
Quinn VanAntwerp: I have always been a replacement in my career. I did Jersey Boys for eight years, which was created out there in San Diego, I joined a couple of years in when they already had won the Tony and whatnot. You know that as an actor, creating the pieces is the most fun. You don’t you don’t necessarily get paid that much when you’re doing it.
But it’s been the most special experience of my life getting to see a show go from its early stages, then through its out of town and through its Broadway run and then now on tour.
You were an understudy for the role you play now? How many times did you go on?
Quinn VanAntwerp: It was it was kind of late COVID, so many times. During that time everyone was being very safe and if anybody got sick, they would take time off. So, we kind of all got a good amount of stage time.
I got to do it out of town for a week when we were in Salt Lake City. I got a couple of weeks in New York and me and Miki Abraham, who was the Lulu understudy, decided to take the tour out on the road because we weren’t done yet.
Watching like the original actor play the role for so long, how did you make it your own? I’m sure what he did kind of seeps into your brain, right?
Quinn VanAntwerp: Sure. But lucky enough for us, we’ve been there for so long that we’ve seen so many different versions, even of John [Behlmann] creating this part.
We had such a collaborative process with Jack O’Brien, our director, and Robert Horn, our writer, and Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, our composers. It’s like we every day we would come in, especially in the beginning, and just everyone was trying to make each other laugh. And so much of those things that people would try would end up on stage.
In a lot of ways, I’m on the shoulders of John, for sure. I was around as he created those notes, those changes with the notes he was given. So, they come out differently in you than they do in him. It’s been really fun to make this new show with new people for the tour and kind of make it our own.
Is there anything major from changes from like the Broadway run to now?
Quinn VanAntwerp: There’s one new number at the top of Act Two. We had a song that I really liked on Broadway there, too, but, you know, the top of Act Two is notoriously a hard song. What do you want to have people see as they come back into the theater from the bar, from the restroom? So, we have a brand new number for the tour that people didn’t see in New York.
But I would say mostly everything else is the same. You know, Robert is always switching out jokes, he loves to like find new fresh jokes, so he changed some jokes up for this.
I’ve never gotten to do a tour, but each city you go in, the very first night, do you get those opening night jitters again?
Quinn VanAntwerp: What’s fun about it is, a lot of times we do one-weekers, like we’re doing in San Diego. The first night is a brand-new theater. The sound department doesn’t know the theater there very well. The backstage crew is new, so like the first night is, I wouldn’t say necessarily nerve wracking, but it’s more everybody’s on their toes because everything’s in a different spot. And that’s kind of fun.
Everyone’s excited to see you, everyone’s excited to have you in town. It feels like you have an opening night every week. But there are things, there are snafus on Tuesday nights, but that’s what makes them excited.
I also think Tuesday night crowds have become my favorite on this show, because it’s not a Jersey Boys or a Mamma Mia that people have seen before. The people who really want to see Shucked are there on Tuesday and Wednesday night because they went and bought tickets to see the show that they’ve been waiting to see. So it’s a really fun crowd usually.
Speaking of Jersey Boys, you did three thousand performances?
Quinn VanAntwerp: Eight years playing Bob Gaudio. It was the first job I got out of college. I was 22.
How happy were you to get that part?
Quinn VanAntwerp: Oh my God, yeah. But when you’re young, you don’t understand how long it takes as an actor to get, even when they like you, how long it takes to book a show like that. I think I went in 13 times in the span of two months before I actually got it. I got sent to Canada for two years. I did a year and a half on tour and then I moved to Broadway.
I met all my best friends on that show. I met my wife on that show. It’s a show that has a very special place in my heart.
If somebody called you up and said, “We have an emergency and you need to be in the show tonight,” could you do it without rehearsal?
Quinn VanAntwerp: I’ve had this nightmare. I really couldn’t. The music I could do. But the other day someone asked me what my first monologue was and I had not a clue what it was. It’s like that brain space had to be taken up by something else and it’s just gone.
I’ve done shows that last the normal sort of two to three month run. And on some of the shows, I’m counting down how many shows we have left. Like, I just want to be done with it. Jersey Boys is a fantastic show, but how did you not go nuts?
Quinn VanAntwerp: I always tell people the first year is the hardest because you’re like, “I can’t believe we’re going to do this again.”
But, you know, you go year by year, really. It’s one of those things where you don’t mean to stay eight years. You always think you’re going to go do something else, but it’s hard to get a job while you have a job. And, it’s hard to leave a dream job like that if they keep moving you somewhere new. Because you’re like, “well, now I’m a lead on Broadway.” This is what I dreamed about. Why would I leave?
But yeah, you’ve really got to rely on each other. Eight shows a week is hard, even just for six to eight months, let alone forever.
And always take vacation. If anyone’s listening to this, you’re like, “oh, I’m not going to take vacation. I’m just going to take the payout later.” You take that vacation. You go be a human for a while.
What has been your worst audition ever?
Quinn VanAntwerp: There’s been a lot of them. Sometimes they don’t feel bad until the director starts talking to you and you’re like, “oh, I really bombed that.”
The one I remember the most is the day that I was going in for my final callback at Jersey Boys, I also had a callback for Fiero and Wicked. I sang all of the first song, and I just hadn’t really prepared for it because I really wanted Jersey Boys. And it was like my big final audition and when I finished the song, the casting director, Craig Burns, was like, “it was great but you sang all of Elphaba’s lyrics.”
So, I was in there being like, …kiss me too fiercely. And it’s just not even the right cut of the song. So, I always remember that. I was like, “OK, well, I’m never going to get that job.”
Shucked is playing at the San Diego Civic Theatre August 12–17. For more info and tickets: Broadway San Diego
