Artist Statement
How did I get here? What do I do? Why do I do it? All the important questions every artist needs to ask and answer. Italian-american country kid runs off to join the circus? Two suitcases, a dream, and a backstage magazine? Find out by reading more...
Resume
What’s an actor without a good old fashioned headshot and rez? I remember when they were in black and white…now they’re interactive and high tech! Check mine out on ActorsAccess...
Biography
I’d like to thank the academy and all the little people out there in the dark… No but really this is here so that I can copy and paste it for the playbill of whatever show I’m doing. Read my Artist Statement, it’s more interesting. Ok fine here’s my bio too...
“I was born in a trunk…” in a thunderous but velvety voice Judy Garland explodes into the iconic Born in a Trunk film sequence in A STAR IS BORN. She reverently sings of being born into a showbiz family and traveling from town to town since she was a young child. She has known no other life both in the film as Ester Blodgett and in her own reality as Baby Frances Gumm: the daughter of vaudevillians who thrust her into the vaudeville circuit as an infant.
And thus, there in glorious technicolor, showbiz called to me. Though I wasn’t born into a showbiz family, I moved around the country 7 times before leaving my rural Pennsylvania highschool at 16 to start my professional career in the stage adaptation of the Judy Garland movie MEET ME IN ST LOUIS. And it was there, in the VCR of the cast housing of that show (where director Walter Willison accidentally left his VHS of A Star is Born), that I was introduced to the Born in a Trunk sequence: A masterclass in the glitter, the glamor, and the glorious gutter of a life in showbusiness.
There weren’t many opportunities to see theatre (let alone train for it) in the extremely conservative, religious town where I went to high school. It’s a part of the country we lovingly referred to as “Pennsyltucky.” There were 5 churches on my street alone; and no theatres. From thrift stores and garage sales I soaked up every record, cast album, and page of sheet music I could find. At school I reveled in every story that the more privileged kids told about the Broadway shows they got to see: “and then the chandelier fell over the audience!”
Yes I was The Phantom of the Opera for three Halloweens in a row before ever seeing the show.
When it came time to audition for theatre conservatories I had a few years of piano lessons, a few months of dance classes, and about 8 voice lessons under my belt- but I was scrappy and hungry, so I did the work and ended up getting a scholarship to attend The University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
When I got to school I saw how different I was from the other students and struggled with undiagnosed ADHD. I had a hard time learning and retaining the details of my work and my acting teachers scolded me about “staying in the moment.” It’s hard to stay in the moment when your brain is processing every possible moment at once. I started to excel in Ballet because I had the physical facility for it and the structure of class forced my brain to focus on the task at hand. I left The University of the Arts and began classes at the prestigious and competitive Rock School of the Pennsylvania Ballet on full scholarship.
Ever the wanderlusty itinerant, I bounced from Ballet program to Ballet program until I found myself surfing couches in New York City and circling auditions in the Backstage newspaper. There I was - standing in the heart of it - finally doing theatre again. I spent my 20’s as the most unfocused but focus-pulling chorus dancer in regional productions and tours of Peter Pan, CATS, Evita, Oklahoma, 42nd Street, West Side Story, Carousel, and many others. I learned a lot in the chorus - mostly respect for all of the other dancers who were much more focused than I. As Carol Burnett once said: “I wasn’t good enough for the chorus.”
You haven’t made it in show business until the fantastic Lenora Nemetz yells at you for moving a piano to the wrong spike mark while rehearsing a one week stock production of 42nd Street.
Now with the focus, discipline, and technical spine I lacked in my 20’s I’ve been lucky enough to play some very diverse and challenging characters. Classes in Meisner, Practical Aesthetics, Stella Adler, Uta Hagen, Lecoq, and Laban fed my insatiable need to make up for my lost time in conservatory. It wasn’t until I stumbled on the work of Stanislavki’s prized pupil Michael Chekhov that I realized my ultimate quest as an actor: to transform both myself and the audience. None of us make money doing theatre and very few of us become ‘famous.’ So what other reason to do it than to bamboozle, challenge, and ultimately inspire an audience? This is the mantra and the work that has given me the capacity and joy to play larger-than-life roles like Frank-n-Furter in Rocky Horror, Munkstrap and Rum Tum Tugger in CATS, Emcee in Cabaret, Bill Sikes in Oliver, Pharaoh in Joseph...
and Gaston in Beauty and the Beast.
At the ripe young age of *muffled dialogue* I've already lived four lives (as an itinerant kid, ballet dancer, ensemble hoofer, Actor) - and I feel as if my journey has just begun. The greatest actors learn from their life experience and from every role that they devour. I’m excited to continue adding to my arsenal, to continue learning, and to continue enlivening audiences around the globe. Who knows? There might be another anxious itinerant kid out there in the dark auditorium looking for the spark that Theatre gave me so many years ago.
All he needs is the inspiration and the hunger to go for it…just make sure to move the piano to the right spike mark...
BIOGRAPHY
a 5,6,7,8...
Hailed as “dazzling” by legendary Village Voice columnist Michael Musto, Jesse’s favorite roles include Frank-N-Furter in Rocky Horror, Pharaoh in Joseph, Munkustrap and Rum Tum Tugger in Cats, Emcee in Cabaret, and Bill Sikes in Oliver! He’s played Gaston in Beauty and the Beast multiple times and has also enjoyed an international concert career.
Read more at www.jessesings.com
And say hi! on insta @jesseluttrell
Jesse is represented by About Artists Agency
1650 Broadway, Set. 1406
New York, NY 10019
Phone: (212) 581-1857
AboutArtists@gmail.com