Gabrielle Hamilton spent four years at Point Park University learning who she wanted to be as a dancer and artist. It was in Pittsburgh that the native of New York City’s Harlem neighborhood was truly able to “break down my old self” and emerge as a more seasoned performer.
“All the creative and powerful choreographers they brought in at Point Park opened my eyes to being proactive today ... and being able to speak to people without having words being spoken,” she told the Post-Gazette. “Point Park really defined who I am and what I stand for today.”
In 2019, Hamilton took everything she learned in the Steel City to Broadway and earned acclaim as the lead dancer in the famous dream ballet sequence in a Tony-winning revival of the 1943 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Oklahoma!” Though it kept much of the original show’s story and dialogue intact, this “Oklahoma!” looked and sounded more like a modern American musical.
The national tour of the revamped “Oklahoma!” opens Tuesday and runs through Sunday at Downtown’s Benedum Center. Tickets are $33-$115 at trustarts.org. The Benedum is still requiring proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test upon entry.
For Hamilton, getting to dance in “Oklahoma!” at the Benedum is a “full-circle back to my second home.” This will be her first time on the Benedum’s stage; while at Point Park, she performed at the Byham Theater. An avid foodie, she is also planning to visit some of her favorite restaurants here like Yard House, Bakersfield and Burgatory.
She said “it’s honestly quite crazy” that she’s still able to perform the dream ballet sequence as often as the tour requires after doing it so many times on Broadway. She described it as being “physically, spiritually and emotionally demanding.” At this point, she knows how to balance what that dance needs from her with the proper sleep and rest to bring the necessary energy to the stage each performance.
The theater world has been hit hard by the COVID-19 omicron variant, and some Broadway shows have been forced to close early due to outbreaks among the cast and crew. Hamilton is confident that the “Oklahoma!” tour’s testing and safety policies will allow the show to go on as scheduled in Pittsburgh.
“I’m not afraid because we’ve done this before,” she said. “We have the tools. If there are any obstacles that need to be [dealt with], there’s always going to be another way for us, the industry, to come back to life because art is very much needed. Operating by fear will only create more fear, and we already have enough of that.”
The musical is set during the time period right before the Oklahoma territory became an official U.S. state. It chronicles a fraught love triangle involving Laurey Williams (played by Sasha Hutchings), cowboy Curly McLain (Sean Grandillo) and unstable farmhand Jud Fry (Christopher Bannow).
In addition to Hamilton, the company of the “Oklahoma!” tour includes other veterans of the Broadway revival. Bannow understudied nearly every male character before getting the opportunity to play Jud full-time on tour. The 34-year-old New Haven, Conn., native landed in “Oklahoma!” after earning a graduate degree at the Yale University School of Drama and then working on a 2014 revival of “The Elephant Man” that starred Bradley Cooper.
This is Bannow’s first time in Pittsburgh since he toured Carnegie Mellon University when he was 17. (He ended up going to and graduating from Boston University.) Getting to know so many roles as a Broadway understudy “gave me a holistic view of the story of ‘Oklahoma!,’” he said, noting how Jud grew to be so lonely and misguided after being shunned by his community.
“It’s really exciting as an actor to be playing a character that most people walking into the show know as the villain,” Bannow said. “My job as an actor is to not preemptively judge who I’m playing and hopefully tell my character’s story in a way that audiences might reconsider in a way that they hadn’t thought about before.”
He sees this “Oklahoma!” as honoring the original while “bringing it into this accessible and contemporary place.” He believes it has the potential to “jumpstart so many conversations about interpretation” among audiences. It’s still early in this tour’s run.
“In a way, it feels like we’ve been in previews up until now,” he said. “Pittsburgh is kind of the beginning of the rest of the tour.”
Hamilton, meanwhile, is thrilled to still be playing such a prominent role in a show as iconic as “Oklahoma!” Like Bannow, she’s excited for folks beyond Broadway to see what this version of that story has to offer and expects it to spark some discussions afterward.
“Be open-minded,” she said. “Be able to receive in a way that is true to you. Just receive, and let the seed plant in you. If you don’t like it, that’s good. If you do like it, that’s good, too. It’s all about perspective and how you take it.”
Joshua Axelrod: jaxelrod@post-gazette.com and Twitter @jaxelburgh.
First Published: January 4, 2022, 11:00 a.m.
Updated: January 4, 2022, 11:10 a.m.