ANDY DRACHENBERG: Why is The Bridges of Madison County a project that you wanted to work on?
STEVEN PASQUALE: Well, that’s easy. It’s really about the creative team: Jason Robert Brown, Marsha Norman, Bartlett Sher and Kelli O’Hara – it’s an East Coast theatre all-star team. I’d work on anything they’re working on, and Bridges is great source material. Who better to have emotions that are so large that you have to sing about them than two people who have four days to explore this incredible, once in a lifetime love?
AD: What is the story at the heart of The Bridges of Madison County?
SP: The Bridges of Madison County is a story of two people who find each other in the 1960’s in rural America and share four unforgettable days together. It’s about the consequences of the decisions we make. It’s about love and letting go. And it’s about what happens when you let someone into your heart. It’s incredibly romantic and beautiful.
AD: What is it like to work on a musical by Jason Robert Brown?
SP: It’s extraordinarily beautiful from top to bottom. We’re so blessed to be singing it every night. Jason Robert Brown is one of the greatest composers, and his music is so accessible and smart. In a day and age where so many things that we see on Broadway are either sendups, a sketch making fun or a jukebox, to have someone like Jason write one of his best scores is reason enough to come out and see it.
AD: Tell me a bit about Robert – who is he in this story? What’s important about him? How is he different from everybody else in the story?
SP: Robert Kincaid is a wild-life photographer for National Geographic. He spends his life wandering the globe seeing incredible things, but always looking in from the outside. His experience with Francesca Johnson in Winterset, Iowa is the first time in his life that somebody gets in and has an effect on him. It’s the first time he feels like he’s a part of something without his camera being between him and his subject. He’s the definition of the saying “Still waters run deep, ” yet he’s got this fire and passion which he discovers in this story.
AD: Discuss how time plays a role in Bridges.
SP: The days Robert and Francesca spend together are precious, so time is a really important part of the story and raises the stakes. All of the storytelling happens within four days, so it’s a surprising confluence of events that Robert and Francesca meet and have this connection. They realize that they have these incredibly deep feelings for each other but have a very limited time to explore them before the real world hits them and they have to make a decision about what to do.
AD: What first helped you get a strong understanding of Robert?
SP: Bart, Jason and I had a lot of conversations about trying to ease off the sociable quality that I have because Robert is the opposite of that. He is only able to be around people as an observer, not as somebody that participates. His ability to be comfortable in the silence and in the stillness is something that I find really beautiful. It’s one of the great joys in playing Robert, and it took me a few weeks to really find the discomfort in what he must be feeling. That creates a really large distance between him and the world in which he operates. The fact that this warm, vivacious Italian woman destroys that wall and those boundaries so quickly and easily is the most powerful thing that ever happens to him.
AD: Since Robert Kincaid is a photographer, have you been doing a lot of research in photography?
SP: I’ve been thinking and studying a lot about photography since this job came into my life. From 1958 and certainly in the 60’s and the 70’s until the early to mid-90’s, taking a picture took a little bit of time. It was about the stillness, the setup and waiting for the light to be right. It wasn’t in a day in age where you can just zap a thousand photos and then pick the best one on your computer.
AD: Do you have a favorite moment in the story or a favorite moment on stage each night?
SP: My favorite moment is getting to sing this beautiful song called “Wondering” in Act I where Robert is leaving Francesca’s house for the first time after she’s cooked him dinner. He’s just trying to understand what happened that evening in his mind and how to go about having these feelings for Francesca. I sit on this beautiful rustic wooden lip of the stage and just sing these beautiful words with this incredible backdrop of thousands of summer stars in the sky. It’s really sweet and quiet. It is a perfect stage moment for me.
AD: What has the process in rehearsals been like so far?
SP: It has been really collaborative. Bart is an unbelievably organic director. He’s open to everyone’s ideas. He’s masterful in how he speaks to the writers. I find that he has given me the ability and the confidence to try anything. There’s not a sense of anyone tiptoeing around the room or walking on eggshells because we’re all interested in making the best version of this story. There are no bad ideas in the room, that’s for sure.
STEVEN PASQUALE (Robert Kincaid). is best known for starring on the 7-season FX hit TV series “Rescue Me” as firefighter Sean Garritty. He was also the star of NBC’s recent Jekyll and Hyde reboot “Do No Harm.” A regular on the theater scene, he was recently seen in Tony Kushner’s The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures at the Public Theater. He starred on Broadway in Neil LaBute’s reasons to be pretty, as well as A Soldier’s Play (Second Stage), Neil LaBute’s off-Broadway hit, Fat Pig (MCC), the Ahrens/Flaherty/McNally musical A Man of No Importance(Lincoln Center, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations), Beautiful Child(Vineyard Theater), The Spitfire Grill (Playwrights Horizons), Spinning Into Butter (Lincoln Center), and Andrew Lippa’sThe Wild Party (MTC). Pasquale also created the role of Fabrizio in Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas’ Tony Award-winning The Light in the Piazza. He starred in The Secret Garden(World AIDS Day Concert), and A Little Night Music(Roundabout, opposite Victor Garber, Natasha Richardson, and Vanessa Redgrave). Steven co-starred in Ricky Ian Gordon’s GRAPES OF WRATHopera at Carnegie Hall. Pasquale also starred in the national tour of Miss Saigon. He can currently be seen opposite Kelli O’Hara in Far From Heavenat Playwrights Horizons. Other television credits include “Up All Night”, “Over/Under” for USA (pilot), “Coma” for A&E, “Marry Me” opposite Lucy Liu, a recurring role on HBO’s Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning drama “Six Feet Under” and Sofia Coppola’s “Platinum.” His film credits include the role of Dallas in Alien vs. Predator: Requiem;Aurora Borealis, which premiered at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival; and Jonathan’s Segal’s The Last Run. His debut solo album, Somethin’ Like Love, was released in 2009 by the Grammy-nominated record label PS Classics.