Andrew Barth Feldman performs in the titular role in “Dear Evan Hansen” with, from left, Michael Park, Jennifer Laura Thompson and Mallory Bechtel. (Photo by Matthew Murphy)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Every single night. And now she\u2019s coming more like three times a week. She just gets really such a high off of it. I\u2019ve done so much community theater throughout my life, and I think [there\u2019s] maybe two performances she\u2019s ever missed me doing. So this is a weird thing for her, to deliberately not come to the show. But she\u2019s learning. I could not possibly do any of this without her. She has managed every aspect of the planning, and all the ins and outs that I, as a 16-year-old, could not possibly do all by myself. My whole family has just been really happy and excited.<\/p>\n
I saw in a Playbill interview that you founded a theater company for your bar mitzvah project. Can you tell me a little more about this?<\/em><\/p>\nYeah, the whole theater company sort of happened by accident.<\/p>\n
How?<\/em><\/p>\nI had been trying to stage musicals from a very, very young age, always unsuccessfully. So I wanted to do something that would raise money for charity, but also do something I was good at, which was theater. So with like 12 of my closest, most talented friends, we staged a cabaret. I was 12 years old! And we raised money for what is now NEXT for Autism, a charity that raises money to help all aspects of life for people living with autism.<\/p>\n
We did pretty much five seasons of shows. It started with just little cabarets, but sooner we started doing full-fledged, fully staged musicals and gained a bit of a following. And that\u2019s something I\u2019m really really so proud of, that my friends and I were able to build that from the ground up out of nothing. It was really really special, and we\u2019re definitely not done \u2014 we\u2019ll be back!<\/p>\n
Can you just tell me \u2014 and I\u2019m so sorry if I mispronounce the name of it \u2014 Zneefrock Productions?<\/em><\/p>\nThat was correct!<\/p>\n
Really? Wow.<\/em><\/p>\nZneefrock, yeah. Most people cannot figure that out.
Shot in the dark! Can you just tell me about that name and how you thought of it?<\/em><\/p>\n[Laughs] There used to be this restaurant in New York City called Mars 2112, and it was themed to act like you were dining on Mars. I\u2019m a big fan of theming, and themed restaurants, so [my family] used to go pretty often. The food was terrible! But it was really, really fun.<\/p>\n
There were these walk-around alien characters that we didn\u2019t know the names of. They had names \u2014 now I know some of the names \u2013 but at the time my family and I just made them up. So one of them was Zneefrock, and I sort of took on the mantle as Zneefrock, and my sister was Smudgekee, which was the name of one of the other aliens. Which, if you could figure out how to spell that \u2026<\/p>\n
I was just about to ask you \u2014<\/em><\/p>\nI don\u2019t know! You can make it up.<\/p>\n
What was your Jewish upbringing like? <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nJudaism has always sort of been a big part of my life, especially growing up on Long Island, it\u2019s very much a community in my neighborhood. It\u2019s not \u2013 there isn\u2019t the Jewish kid. Everybody\u2019s Jewish. So it sort of builds something to bond over, and it builds a collective thing from a very young age, and that\u2019s really cool. We\u2019re Reform Jews, but we\u2019ve gone to temple, we go temple, and we\u2019re very much Jews by tradition. It\u2019s always something to look forward to, to celebrate the holidays and see your family, so it\u2019s been a part of my life, just as it is for any other kid on Long Island. But it builds that community, and that\u2019s something that I really cherish.<\/p>\n
You talked about wanting to stage musicals when you were very young. Were you always a theater kid? <\/em><\/p>\nI\u2019ve been a theater kid for pretty much as long as you can be a theater kid. I started doing theater when I was 8, but I saw my first Broadway show when I was 3 years old. It was \u201cBeauty and the Beast,\u201d and I fell in love. And as soon as I found out you could do theater \u2013 I didn\u2019t realize it was a thing you could go into a place and do! \u2014 but as soon as I found out you could, I just ran there.<\/p>\n
And the ultimate theater kid TV show is \u201cSmash.\u201d I love that you\u2019re campaigning to bring it back. Do you think it will work?<\/em><\/p>\nI\u2019m so glad everyone\u2019s talking about me campaigning to bring back \u201cSmash.\u201d Genuinely. The more word of mouth there is, the better. I hope there\u2019s something in the works to bring it back in some way. Cause, you know, I\u2019m going to keep pushing until it does, is really the answer. I\u2019m glad that I\u2019m in a position now to sort of just talk about something enough that more people will [listen].<\/p>\n
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