I met with James in his dressing room in between shows on January 9th. He is so enthusiastic about his work and his face just lit up when he told me about his band and a former show he had done. Read closely because James informed me of two upcoming events for the month of February.

NR: Let's talk about your back- ground. Where did you grow up?

JB: I grew up in Staten Island. I'm a local boy, which has been nice because my parents have brought a lot of people to see the show. It's been great. There was one day my dad brought 32 people and another day my mom brought 25. And that's been really nice.

So, I went to high school at Stuyvesant here in Manhattan and I went to Yale. And after I graduated from Yale I moved back to the city. So I've pretty much lived in the city the whole time.

NR: When did you decide to become a performer?

JB: I was always a musician. When I was a kid I played the piano - I started when I was 7. And when I was a kid in grade school I sang in Christmas shows, but I was really more of an instrumentalist. And then I got into theater doing musical directing. In my early teen years I musical directed a drama camp in Staten Island. I came about that because I was musical directing our school shows because I was the main pianist, and so I just kind of fell into it that way. And then at some point I realized "You know, I can sing. I can kind of do that stuff up there." And so I guess junior high school's when I first started auditioning for school shows. And I did a lot of plays and musicals through high school and college and I sang a lot. I was in a capella singers through college. But I still didn't know if I wanted to do this professionally.

Friends of mine from high school, you know, my girlfriend at the time - she still says she's really excited that I've chosen this path but it's probably surprising. I was a history major in college, but this is a thing I've always loved. It's something that I love to do. Like most people in college, your extra-curricular activities are as important as your curricular activities, and my extra-curriculars in high school were baseball and theater. In college it was really theater and these a capella singing groups. So I performed all the time. I traveled around the world with these singing groups, and got to do a lot of theater. And when I graduated I still wasn't sure if I wanted to do it. So I got an apartment in New York with some friends and had to start paying rent, so I said, "Let me get a job first." And you know, I'm a media freak. I love newspapers, TV, film, so I thought "let me take a job somehow in that." And I took a job in advertising for about 4 months. It was fine, but it didn't really excite me. And I was taking an acting class at the time and I was studying voice and I thought, "I think I'll give this a go." And so I started auditioning 7 months after I graduated. And I've pretty much been pursuing it since then. There have been some bumps in the road...

NR: It doesn't look like it took you too long. You're not THAT old....

JB: (laughing) No, but what you have to come to terms with - I knew I love to act and I knew I love to sing, but the career isn't just about the acting and singing. It's about getting work, and all this other stuff. You have to like the freelance lifestyle where you don't know what job is next and you have to be OK with living well below the poverty line at times. And I learned how to be good with money when I had none. So, you have to learn how to like all that stuff because you can love to do it but you don't get opportunities to do it. Somebody once said to me that you audition for a living, and then when you get the job it's gravy. And there's a certain amount of truth to that. But the jobs themselves are much easier than "getting the work."

NR: Well, I was about to ask you if you had advice for someone who wants to become an actor.

JB: I never did the "waiting tables thing." I would temp, because I would rather be in an office than waiting tables. So, when I was first starting out I had to temp a lot and I would go off and stop for awhile. Temping was good for me because I never got emotionally involved. I just kind of earned my paycheck. But it really started draining me for awhile. It's really perseverance. One great thing I always find is when you're in class it keeps you going. So, I've studied with the same teacher for four years in New York and sometimes when I'm doing a show I can also study, but right now I just don't have any time. But in between shows you're still working and you still feel like you're moving forward. And you don't just wait around for your next job. But you have to....work begets work. And sometimes you take pieces that aren't so great, or go out of town... Different actors have different philosophies. Some people are very choosy and they won't go out of town. I have a totally different philosophy. I've had to go out of town at times and you know, you have to uproot. Luckily I've never been out of town for that long. I've never been gone for more than 4 months at a time. But you can be gone for 4 months, come back for 2 months, be gone for another month.

NR: Do you have a favorite role you've played so far?

JB: A favorite role... Hmmm, I don't know. I'm fond of Toby in Sweeney Todd. I've done that a couple times. I think my favorite show that I've ever done is Floyd Collins.

NR: Somebody just asked me about that. She says she's a "self-proclaimed Floydee" and she wants to know if you had fun. I have to be honest... I never heard of it. So, can you tell me something about it?

JB: Sure. It was a piece written by Adam Guettel and Tina Landau, who actually both went to Yale. They were years before me. So, there was this whole "Yale connection" and it was kind of nice when I auditioned. And it's basically a musical based on the true story of this guy who gets trapped in a cave in Kentucky in 1925 and it becomes one of the first media spectacles. If you remember when baby Jessica got trapped in a well? It was kind of similar to that. People from all around the nation were focused on this thing - "Will he survive? Will he survive?" And this carnival atmosphere occurred on top of the area. People were hawking things. People from all over the world were reporting on it. And it's an incredibly heartfelt, spiritual show. It's Adam's first musical that he's written. He's the grandson of Richard Rodgers and the son of Mary Rodgers, so he's sort of ... people talk about the hot young new composers and he's always mentioned at the top of the list. And Tina, is the most artistic person I have ever worked with. And she relies on her actors so much creatively. I was one of the three reporters and we were kind of the "city element." Our number, which is sort of like the "funny number" in the show - we choreographed ourselves. Basically she sent us off to a room and said, "Come up with five gestures for writing, three for listening, and three walks." Something along those lines. And I was with Matthew Bennett and Brian D'Arcy James who are two amazing actors. And you know, we would just sit in the room and kind of play. For any young performers who've been to drama camps... you know that sense of spirit and adventure and collaboration ... it was really taking place on a professional level. And a lot of times you don't get that opportunity for the actors to use their full artistic theme to collaborate.

But the show itself - it was an incredible company. We kind of had bad timing. We opened two weeks after Rent opened downtown and that was already declared the off Broadway hit that was going to go to Broadway. So, what we've gotten is this cult following. And I know people who think it's just one of the most moving things they've ever seen and I'm just proud to have been a part of it. It was also my first big break into doing new shows. Before that I had done a national tour and I had done regional summer stock, but this was working on a new show and that's really what I've done since then. And, it's much more fun to work on new pieces.

And one of the nice things about this, you know I came in to replace Gilles (Chiasson), but when we changed it I got to sort of recreate a role.

NR: OK, we'll get back to that. You have a band called "Five Floor Monica". Can you tell me about it?

JB: I have a vocal band. It's all people I went to college with and we all did a capella singing groups in college. But, four of us were in this group called the "Whiffenpoofs," which is an all senior men's group of 14 guys singing old standards in white tie and tails. So, this guy John Alger, who graduated a year ahead of me, wanted to come up with the idea of no instruments but it functions like a band where he writes the music but we riff and we kind of come up with arrangements ourselves, the way a band would setup arrangements. And it's sort of pop/funk.

NR: Do you perform?

JB: Yeah. In the past year we've basically been mixing our album. Because we have our first CD that we're producing ourselves. But I guess we started around 3 years ago. The first 2 years we sang a lot around town. Unfortunately my schedule has precluded me from doing some of the gigs. I think they've had somebody fill in for me a couple of times. Actually my first week here, my very first week doing the show, on Saturday night, a two show day, I raced up to a gig to do the second half act of the gig and it was absolutely exhausting! Because you know... your first week, your head is spinning...

NR: Wow! Well, you'll have to tell us if you're performing.

JB: Yeah, I will. Right now we're focusing on getting this CD out. It looks like it will be out in February. I'm really proud of the group. It's really smart, fun music, all original music. The guy who writes it, this guy John, is terrific. It's four guys, one woman, which is also unusual. The only group that's similar is the "Bobs" and they have three men and one woman They're a little quirkier. John hates the word "a capella" because it kind of denotes a certain "dorky quality." He wants us to be really much cooler and "downtown hip" and that's why he calls us a sort of a "vocal band" so it will have a hipper quality to it.

NR: Well, you know you have a built-in audience to get the word out.

JB: Exactly, exactly. Well, once I can get the CD I'll get it out to the website.

NR: Absolutely, because everybody's asked me about it.

JB: Oh, great.

NR: OK, let's get to The Scarlet Pimpernel now. My daughter wants to know what song you sang for your audition.

JB: OK, I sang ...um, um... It was from Hunchback of Notre Dame - Quasimodo's big ballad....ugh! I can't even think of the name of the song! I'll come back to it. (Note: Before I left the theater I was handed a note from James - "I remembered the name of my audition song - it was "Out There.")

NR: I remember you came in in August, and they had just found out about the takeover. It was kind of a tumultuous time...

JB: Yeah, I was right there. In fact, I had my audition and my agent called me the next day and said, "Why don't you try on Gilles' costume." And I came to the theater and tried on his costume and he's a little bit bigger than me. And they didn't know what to do, they weren't sure. And finally when I got the official offer they decided to just make me a new costume because suddenly they had this influx of money and they had new producers.

NR: When you walked in, was the cast somewhat thrown? It was pretty much a crazy time.

JB: It was a little weird because people were just adjusting to the notion. They thought they were closing in a few weeks. So originally when I came in I thought I might have a job for three weeks. And I think I was one of the last people hired before Bobby (Longbottom) came in. It was a little odd. One of the nice things for me was that I knew so many people in the company. First of all I know Gilles and so that was nice. So I got a sort of "heads up" from him. But I knew James Judy and Liz Ward, and I went to college with Craig Rubano and I had worked with Allen Fitzpatrick. So, I walked into a family already.

NR: Well that explains something, because a couple of Leaguers had asked Douglas (Sills) when you first came in to rehearsal, "How's the new Armand?" And he said "cool as a cucumber." And he was very impressed when you walked in and were that cool.

JB: (laughing) That was one of the first things he said to me. He said, "There's just ice in your veins."

NR: So, it wasn't scary at all? This was your Broadway debut.

JB: Yeah, my Broadway debut. Can I tell you what? The scariest part of the first performance was never having done the costume change on the bridge. And I didn't do it. I had it inside out, I couldn't get my arm through. Now, we have new producers and new directors so we actually get full "put-ins" for the new people. When I came in, I just went to an understudy rehearsal. I had never done anything with Douglas. I actually had two rehearsals with Christine (Andreas) when we went through some of the book scenes which was nice. But, I had never been with everyone on stage, so ... I've never been a swing and I can imagine what a swing's life must be like, because you look at it from the outside and then you try to picture yourself there. But it's very different than when you're actually there. So, it was like that anxiety dream that every performer has where someone comes to you and says, "We're doing this show and I know you did it a couple of years ago. Could you just step in and do it?" And you're like "Oh, OK." And you don't really know it but everybody else does. And suddenly you're out there and there are 2000 people out there. Well, that's ACTUALLY what happened. And so, that was the scary part.

NR: So, rehearsal was fine, but it was on stage that it was tough?

JB: Oh, yeah, the rehearsals were fine. I watched and I knew the part. But when you get up there, it's just different....it's just different. And, so the fact that it was my Broadway debut came second to the fact that I had never really done some of these things, such as I had gone up on the bridge, but I had never gone up with everybody else and tried to get myself into the pants!

NR: OK, so you did see Gilles. How did you make Armand your own?

JB: I think one of the things about Armand is he's there to sort of serve. He's there to sort of help Marguerite and to help Percy, so I just think you listen and respond. And you just open yourself up. You know, I just use a lot of me. I think that's how you make it your own.

NR: How has he changed in the new version?

JB: I know some people say since I don't sing "You Are My Home" anymore that I sing less, but I actually think the part's better. I think the part's written a little stronger. Through the second act, once I come back, you definitely feel my presence through it. Like, in the seascape, before, I kind of disappeared through that whole thing, but now I get to stand up to Chauvelin a little more, which is good, and I also have a couple more opportunities to get laughs, which I appreciate because I do a lot of comedy stuff. So, that's just nice to have a couple of opportunities there.

NR: Were you prepared for the amount of enthusiasm from the League?

JB: No.

NR: Were you warned in advance?

JB: I was told. Yeah, I was told. It's amazing now, it really is truly amazing. It's this warmth and just complete support that I've never received before. This is my first real commercial show. A lot of the new shows I've done haven't been on this broad a spectrum. First of all I haven't been on Broadway, but also it's been a little edgier and this is truly commercial, and people just love it and have a great time.

The closing night of the old show was like Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was unbelievable! And when we were in the carriage, and Christine said, "Oh my God" and everyone said, "Oh my God!" - it was unbelievable!

NR: (laughing) Good, I'm glad you heard that.

JB: Oh, my God! It's amazing! It really helps. It's really a wonderful thing.

NR: What do you wish you had more time for, since you're so busy now?

JB: I wish I had more time to do stuff with "Five Floor Monica," my band. Socially, it's hard to spend time with my girlfriend, it's hard to spend time with my friends who work during the day because my schedule is opposite. But, I can't complain. I have a principal role in a Broadway show! I have no business complaining. (big smile) It's a good job.

NR: What do you want to do in the future?

JB: I want to just keep challenging myself as an actor. I just want to do more and more roles and just keep working. I want to do TV, I want to do film. I love singing, but my ambitions are as an actor. Not that I don't want to do any musical theater, but I want to sort of see what TV is like, and what film is like. I got to do my first TV thing because I did Law and Order which will be on February 10th.

NR: Oh, excellent. I'll tell everybody.

JB: It's just a little thing. But, I like challenges. I just want to keep it going. Lots of different roles.

NR: Great. Good luck!

JB: Thanks.

James was the first person to replace a principal cast member of The Scarlet Pimpernel and it took him no time at all to fit in. He was a joy to interview and I wish him the best of luck with his CD and his TV debut - both of which are coming in February.

Questions suggested by: Meredith, Courtney, Mary Helfrick, Farin, Kelly Honig, Colleen Rosati, Amy Gargan