Jill Van Velzer
on Bob Dylan, fisherman sandals, and Cheetos
Before being cast in the national tour of “Girl From the North Country,” Jill Van Velzer admitted that she wasn’t too familiar with some of the deeper cuts from Bob Dylan’s music catalog. “I knew the hits like ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ and ‘Like a Rolling Stone,’ but honestly, I don’t think it’s important at all [for the audience] to know the songs before coming to the show,” said Van Velzer. “And hearing his songs, taking in his words, in a theater piece is such a good vehicle for absorbing the poetry of his lyrics.” The Tony Award-winning musical was at the Emerson Colonial Theatre March 12-14. Van Velzer said she has grown to love many of the lesser-known Dylan songs — which have been reimagined — in the musical, which opened on Broadway in February 2020, closed the next month because of the COVID pandemic, then resumed performances in October 2021. Featuring more than two dozen of Dylan’s songs — each accompanied by instruments from the 1930s — it won a Tony Award in 2022 for best orchestrations. Van Velzer plays Mrs. Burke, one of the characters staying at a Minnesota boarding house in 1934, during the Depression. “I can identify with her for sure. She is someone whose current world is in chaos and she’s trying to hold it together, to not let chaos wash over her and get the better of her,” said the actress, who is traveling with her husband (Timothy Splain, the show’s musical director), their two young children, 7 and 3, and her “sainted” father, Michael Van Velzer, the official “babysitter and teller of grandpa jokes.” The Orange County, Calif., native called the musical “deeply emotional and very funny … heartfelt rather than heartwarming.” We caught up with Van Velzer, who lives in Manhattan with her family, to talk about all things travel.
If you could travel anywhere right now, where
would you go? My brother lives in China, near Shanghai, with his wife and my twin nieces. Unbelievably, I’ve never gotten to visit them there. Apart from Shanghai, I’m also dying for a chance to get back to the UK for the first time in over a decade. I lived there as a kid when my father was in the Air Force, and I studied in London during college. I want my UK friends to meet my husband and our kids.
Where was the first place you traveled to after
COVID restrictions were lifted? It was Boston. In October 2020, my husband, Tim, and I were crammed into a one-bedroom apartment in NYC with our then 3-year-old son and infant daughter. We desperately wanted a break from New York, but also knew that our kids couldn’t get a COVID vaccine yet. So airplanes were out, and we needed a destination with a lot of outdoor sightseeing. We opted for a long weekend in Boston. I got to exercise my lifelong evangelistic fervor for historical walking tours, Tim got cannoli-to-go from Mike’s Pastry, our son ran around the playground at Boston Common, and we all ate some marvelous crawfish étouffee from the restaurant French Quarter next to the Boston Opera House . . . . I’ll always have a soft spot for Boston.
Do you prefer booking trips through a travel agent or on your own? My husband is my travel agent. He’s better at culling through the options. Thoughts on an “unplugged” vacation? A vacation without phones or email sounds heavenly. But Murphy’s Law for actors dictates that the day you neglect your inbox is the day your agent will send you the really big audition. In fact, I almost missed my agents’ request for my [“Girl From the North Country”] audition. It arrived at 8 p.m. on Friday of Memorial Day weekend, right after my poor father flew into New York City for what he thought was going to be a nice, relaxing holiday visit . . . . But three weeks later, I got the job offer, and now here we all are . . . . I might have to wait until I retire to “unplug” altogether.
Do you vacation to relax, to learn, or for the adventure of it all? The perfect vacation contains a blend of all three, as far as I’m concerned. I do lean into the learning aspect, though. My husband says that he’s never seen me willingly pass up the chance to read an information plaque.
If you could travel with one famous person/celebrity, who would it be? Oh wow, can I tag along with Elvis Costello on one of his concert tours? I sang one of his songs for my “GFTNC” audition, and had a passing familiarity with his song catalog. But last month, he came to see our show and invited some of us to see his show at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.
What is the best gift to give a traveler? I’m one of those people who needs total darkness to sleep . . . so I think a well-fitting sleep mask is a necessity for airplanes, hotels, Airbnb rooms with bad miniblinds, you name it.
What is your go-to snack for a flight or a road trip? Cheese sticks, an apple, some cashews, or pretzel chips. I also have a weakness for Reese’s Pieces and Sour Patch Kids. But if you give me a bag of Cheetos and promise not to make me share them, I’ll rename one of my kids after you.
What is the coolest souvenir you’ve picked up on a vacation? So many favorites: The oh-so-detailed penciled miniature of Smolny Convent from a street art fair in St. Petersburg, Russia; A replica of the original main door key to Independence Hall in Philadelphia; A self-published cookbook of pie recipes from Imogene Mersey, the Pie Lady of Blackwater, Mo.; the drop leaf table with the barley twist legs that my parents brought back from England.
What has travel taught you? The best gift my parents ever gave me, though I didn’t know it at the time, was a childhood spent living in/traveling to different cities and countries. I learned why it’s worth taking the trouble to get to know people; why it’s worth being friendly even when you feel like being shy. I got to see how subtle changes in manners and language and habits can define a place, can make you an insider or an outsider. And in a big way, travel gave me my career — I don’t know that I would have decided to be an actor if I hadn’t fallen in love with live theater after all our family trips to the West End while we were living in England. Also, weather. Travel taught me how to dress for the weather. There’s nothing like spending the Fourth of July on a snowy mountain in Norway to convince you that adequate layers are your friend.
What is your best travel tip? I wish my collegeself had known that 90 percent of trips only require three pairs of shoes: Doc Marten boots, fisherman sandals, and tennis shoes. In summer, maybe not even the Docs — unless you’re in Norway. … See previous answer. But you actually don’t need those high heels. Trust me. You can wear the sandals to that nice dinner.