‘Aladdin’s’ Genie journeyed from Morgantown to the world of Disney
Wishes do come true, even for a genie. Make that
the Genie, the “friend like me” everyone wants as a pal.
Trevor Dion Nicholas has been portraying the Genie in the UK production of “Disney’s Aladdin” to reviews such as The Times of London, which hailed him as “larger than life, all smiles and showbiz and a genius genie.”
He got there by way of his hometown of Morgantown, W.Va., studies at West Virginia University and frequent visits to productions at the Benedum Center. He is leaving London to return for a three-week engagement here, starting Wednesday, with a quick stop in Buffalo, N.Y., to join the tour.
It was just after Christmas last year when the show’s producers mentioned that the tour was coming through Pittsburgh, and Mr. Nicholas told them, “‘That’s my hometown.’ And they asked if I wanted to come home and do the show, and I was more than happy to do that.”
To get to strut his stuff at the Benedum — and the Genie does some strutting — brings him to the place where he first thought he might want to do this showbiz thing for a living.
“Before that, it had been a hobby, but when I saw a show there, I thought, ‘I want to do this and build a career,’” he said by phone from London. “To get to come back and perform in Pittsburgh now is a pretty cool wrap-around in my life.”
The role in the animated film was a vocal tour-deforce for Robin Williams and earned a Tony Award for the original Broadway Genie, James Monroe Iglehart. Mr. Nicholas appeared in the role on Broadway as a replacement before taking it on the road.
“Aladdin” features the Alan Menken-Howard Ashman-Tim Rice songs from the feature film, plus new Menken tunes with lyrics by book writer Chad Beguelin. The Broadway show is still going strong after opening in March 2014.
Taking on a role in the footsteps of free-wheeling performers such as Mr. Williams and Mr. Iglehart gives Mr. Nicholas some room to play as well. He said the musical allows “a lot of the characters to go deeper and you have more to work with.”
There’s also the all-ages audience that give him a boost every night.
“It’s awesome,” he said of looking out at faces young and well, older. “It’s a story that kids can come and relate to, but a lot of us grew up with the movie. That tends to be a large portion of the audience — people who have an attachment to the characters and the story, now introducing their own children to it. A lot of people come in from different backgrounds and with different stories of their own, and they all just have a blast and enjoy it.” The 6-foot-2-inch actor was busy before the Genie came his way. His stage credits include the West End production of “Dreamgirls” and the North American tour of “Big River.”
Mr. Nicholas was last in his hometown in February, when he returned to emcee the annual WVU Medicine Children’s Annual Gala, “but it’s been at least five years since I spent any time in Pittsburgh,” he said.
He’s looking forward to the chance to “just bounce around” town when “Aladdin” arrives. And making his Benedum Center debut has a few perks.
“I’ve had lots of messages from friends and families who are going to be there, so I won’t have a single show where I don’t have someone cheering me on from the audience,” he said.
As the larger-than-life Genie who grants wishes, no doubt he’ll make a few more cheering friends and perhaps inspire a future actor watching him and dreaming of being on the Benedum Center stage.