SO A-PEELE-ING!
H’wood darling got start at 11 in city group
Jordan Peele was a standout from the start of a career that began when he was 11 at a New York City youth theater program.
“The thing that comes to mind when I think of Jordan is really how creative he was,” TADA! Youth Theater cofounder and executive artistic director Nina Trevins told the Daily News.
“Working with him as a director, it was just so wonderful to have a kid … who would come into rehearsal and try many different things,” she recalled. “At that time you got it from the younger kids, but middle school was usually a time where a lot of kids pulled back, and he didn’t do that.”
The 40-year-old “Us” director joined the Midtown organization’s musical theater program at 11, and stayed until he was 14 — saying that landing a role there was “the first win in a long career of wins and losses,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Peele performed in five musicals during his stint there. In his first role in “The Gift of Winter,” he starred as the misunderstood character of Winter, who others assumed was nasty and mean but was really just sad and lonely. He later flexed his comedic chops in “B.O.T.C.H.,” paying a Three Stooges-like character.
“The thing that I never knew and other people and kids who knew him at the time did know was his interest in horror films,” Trevins told The News. “I saw the comic, I saw the brain, I saw how the brain worked. I wasn’t sure he would be a performer. I knew he would be in the field some way. I thought as a writer, which he is just because of the way he was just so creative and so funny.”
Fast-forward to 2019, and Peele is one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed filmmakers. His directorial debut “Get Out,” which premiered in 2017, earned him an Oscar for best original screenplay, as well as nominations for best picture and best director.
His follow-up with the critically praised “Us” set a record for horror films by grossing $70.3 million in its opening weekend earlier this month. Starring Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke, the film has a 94% fresh rating on the review website Rotten Tomatoes.
And Peele never forgot his roots. He joined the TADA! board of directors in 2016, and has hosted a pair of fundraisers.
“It would be really tough right now if he weren’t inNews. volved,” Trevins told The “It’s hard to raise money. We’ve been around for 35 years and it doesn’t get easier. You would think it would, but it actually doesn’t get easier.”
TADA! hosts a variety of programs, including camps, classes and a free ensemble program that casts kids in musicals.