Song, dance and the odd soliloquy
Santino Fontana makes versatility an art form
N EW YOR K — Actors like to switch it up, but Santino Fontana has taken that to ridiculous lengths. The title role in Hamlet? OK. A big dance show like Billy Elliot? Check. A period comedy with The Importance of Being Earnest? Sure. What about a Stephen Sondheim musical or a role as a suffering orphan in an offBroadway play? Yes and yes. Even the Prince in the latest Broadway Cinderella.
“I don’t want to repeat myself. I don’t want to get any one muscle stronger than any other,” says Fontana, who recently added to his eclectic resumé by singing on the Frozen soundtrack.
He credits his ability to zigzag to no one ever telling him he couldn’t. His appetite for doing it all may also be due to a scary accident that taught him life is short.
“I have no problem acknowledging that there’s a lot of randomness and it’s not going to stop. The world will surprise me, again and again and again. The only thing I can control is what I love to do,” he says.
Fontana’s thick resumé — he’s only 31 — takes another turn this spring as he steps into the role of playwright-director Moss Hart for Lincoln Center Theater’s play Act One. Hart was a giant in the theatre during the 1930s-1950s, directing My Fair Lady and Camelot and collaborating with George S. Kaufman on The Man Who Came to Dinner and You Can’t Take It With You. The play, which begins performances Thursday, also stars Tony Award winners Andrea Martin and Chuck Cooper, and Tony nominee Tony Shalhoub.
To Fontana, Hart’s story — his autobiography, also called Act One, is a Bible of sorts in theatre circles — was inspiring when he read it in college. Hart was dirt-poor, had no connections and his first play was a flop, but he persisted.
There’s even an echo in Fontana’s own life: “He didn’t know where he was going to fit in but he didn’t stop,” says the Tony nominee. “He just kept going. And there was nothing telling him he should be doing it.”
Fontana, who was born in California but raised in Richland, Wash., was both a baseball player and a theatre guy who became a 2004 graduate of the University of Minnesota-Guthrie Theater actor- training program. He played Hamlet at 23 in the Guthrie’s final production on its old stage in 2006. He came to New York perhaps expecting a hero’s welcome, only to find himself “back to zero.”
Fontana got small parts in Sunday in the Park With George in 2008, then a larger role in Billy Elliot. He thought he was on his way after snagging a part in the 2009 revival of Brighton Beach Memoirs, but it closed after just nine performances.
Three months later, a brain concussion he suffered during a stage fight forced him to withdraw during previews for A View From the Bridge opposite Scarlett Johansson.
The injury kept Fontana in a darkened room for almost a month. Though he’s made a full recovery, he now suffers from migraines, though his memory is better than ever.
Even with a play, Fontana has plenty more up his sleeve. He’s got a role in the HBO pilot The Money by David Milch with Nathan Lane.