Celeb Corner

St. Louis Native Stars in High School Musical at the Muny

Glendale native Colin Donnell can probably relate High School Musical character Troy Bolton—he devoted his time to sports before auditioning for his first high school performance. That audition kick-started a passion for performing that has taken him across the country as part of the touring cast of Mama Mia, to Broadway as part of the cast of Jersey Boys, and, finally, back home this summer as Troy Bolton in the Muny’s summer production of High School Musical (June 23rd-July 2nd). Donnell spoke with Louie about his career, his love for the Muny, and why he’s looking forward to coming home.

Louie Magazine (LM): What part of St. Louis are you from?
Colin Donnell (CD): I’m from Kirkwood. I went to Kirkwood High School. I actually lived in Glendale.

LM: Did you start performing in high school?
CD: The year I started performing was my freshman year. I had just broken my ankle playing football. I couldn’t make it through to wrestling—wrestling proved to be a little hard for me. So I ended up quitting. At the time, my high school was doing a production of Barnum. They were looking for people who could do circus tricks, and I’d been juggling since I was a young kid. That got my whole career rolling.

LM: What will your rehearsal schedule be like for High School Musical?
CD: We’ll go every single day, 10 am to 6 pm. The day usually doesn’t stop there. I’ll usually have a lot of homework at the end of the day, learning music on my own and memorizing lines.

LM: Have you been on the road a lot over the past couple years?
CD: In 2007, I was lucky and was able to work in New York full time. I was doing the show Jersey Boys on Broadway, so I was able to stay in one place. But before that, I was on the road with Mamma Mia. So I spent a full year traveling every week. Now I’ve done a couple of shows back-to-back. I’m down in Florida right now doing a show. So, I’ll go from Florida to New York for two days, out to St. Louis for two weeks, out to California, and back to St. Louis. So there’s a lot of traveling involved.

LM: What do you miss most about St. Louis?
CD: I haven’t been home for more than 24 hours in almost three years. So, right now, the biggest thing that I’m missing are my parents. They still live in Glendale in the same house I grew up in. So it’s going to be a lot of fun to get back and be able to see them and see friends I haven’t seen in close to three years. And I’m dying to get to a Cardinals game.

LM: Where did you hang out around St. Louis when you were in high school?
CD: I was in a band in high school, and we used to play open-mic nights in the Loop and go catch shows over at Cicero’s. And there was this open-mic night at this little coffee shop in Webster that we used to play. I remember going to Barnes and Nobel to do homework every night. And all of my friends would go and we’d sit and drink coffee and not do our homework.

LM: What do you do on the road to have fun and blow off steam?
CD: It’s sort of a cool thing, being on the road. You’re thrown into this situation with any number of complete strangers. It’s remarkable how often it turns out that you become friends with these people. You don’t really have much of a choice—otherwise your life would be miserable. We just go out and ask local people where they like to hang out. When you’re in a different city every week, it’s hard to really get to know a city, but you try to take advantage of the fact that you’re in a new place that you wouldn’t have necessarily gone to on your own.

LM: What is your favorite part about your job?
CD: I’m getting paid to do what I always wanted to do. I’m making a living out of having fun. It’s not that it’s not a lot of work—but it’s work that I really enjoy. I get to entertain people and hopefully move people. I get to play for a living, which is a pretty sweet deal. People ask me if I love my job, and it’s the easiest thing for me to be able to say, “Yeah, I love my job.”

LM: What advice would you give teens who hope to have your job?
CD: There are a lot of people along the way who will tell you how hard it is. And it is difficult. But if you really love it and you really want to do it, there’s no reason not to give it a shot. Go to school for it. Go straight to New York. Everybody does it a different way. I went to college for theater and then I made my way to New York. But there are a million ways to do it.

LM: What is your relationship with the Muny?
CD: I spent five years doing shows at the Muny. I started working there the summer after my senior year of high school in the Equity Ensemble there. The Muny is a place that holds a lot of special memories.
I basically grew up through that theater. I learned a lot about being a performer
and made a lot of connections. It’s been unbelievably essential in my growth as an actor. Now that I get to come back and play a role on stage, I’m really grateful. They’ve been so kind to me.

LM: What shows did you do at the Muny in the past?
CD: My first show there was their first production of Miss Saigon, which they’re bringing back this year. I did a production of Wizard of Oz, My Fair Lady, Peter Pan, Mame, and Meet Me in St. Louis.

LM: You’ve performed at a lot of venues. What makes the Muny so special to you?
CD: It’s such a unique theater. To have it in St. Louis is such a lucky opportunity. You never go to another city that has a 12,000-seat outdoor theater in it. The closest thing I’ve seen is the Starlight in Kansas City. But the fact that the Muny has seats blocked off so that people can come and see the shows for free shows they really want to reach out to people who don’t otherwise experience the arts on a day-to-day basis. It’s a really magical,place. You have 150-year-old trees growing out of the stage. You’re in the middle of performing a song, and there are airplanes flying overhead and nobody really cares.

LM: Why do you think High School Musical has become such a craze?
CD: I think Disney has basically created this generation’s Grease. It’s a cool story for teenagers that they can relate to. They’ve created easily identifiable characters and some great tunes—the songs are catchy--people love them. It’s an easy story to get hooked on.

High School Musical will be at the Muny from June 23rd to July 2nd. For tickets and more information, visit www.muny.org.