performing arts
Parker says he wasn’t surprised
when Kelly-Sordelet was accepted
at Juilliard, or when he nabbed
the role that he’d previously work-
shopped for Sting’s musical The
Last Ship when it made the move to
Broadway. Kelly-Sordelet relished
the experience, though not the com-
mute. He remembers holiday traffic
being so bad in midtown Manhattan
that he once had to jump out of the
family car and sprint nearly a mile
to make it to the theater on time.
After more than 100 performanc-
es, The Last Ship sailed off into the
sunset, and he resumed an aspiring
actor’s default mode of meeting
with casting directors and audition-
ing. “There’s that joke that ‘An
actor’s job is to audition, and when
you get the job, it’s a vacation,
because you can relax and sink into
one thing,’” he says with a laugh.
He won parts in TV shows The
Path and Blue Bloods, and films
Wildling and Radium Girls.
Then his agent sent him the
script for The Ferryman, a sprawl-
ing and rapturously received family
saga set in 1981 Northern Ireland
during The Troubles. The show had
had a year-long run in London’s
West End, then opened in New
York last fall with a UK cast, and
was being recast with
a mostly American ensemble to
premiere mid-February.
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MAY 2019 MONTCLAIR MAGAZINE
Originally up for the role of broth-
er Michael Carney, Kelly-Sordelet
later learned that the director had
immediately envisioned him as JJ.
Dialogue coaching ensued with
Deborah Hecht, who’d been his
voice teacher at Juilliard, to nail
down the Northern Irish dialect.
On February 19, after six weeks
of rehearsal, the new cast took over
the show, led by Tony nominee
Brian D’Arcy James as paterfa-
milias Quentin Carney, Holly Fain as
Quentin’s sister-in-law Caitlin and
Kelly-Sordelet’s co-star from The
Last Ship, Fred Applegate, as Uncle
Patrick. Former Montclair resident
Shuler Hensley plays family friend
and neighbor Tom Kettle.
“Being in such a wonderful pro-
duction is a master class in how to
become a better person and artist,”
say Kelly-Sordelet. “I’m learning to
be more confident — that I don’t
have to do more, and can just be.”
The show is a wonderful oppor-
tunity, but has its challenges. “It’s
epic in every way,” he says. “It runs
3 hours and 15 minutes, which is 45
minutes longer than the last play I
did, and you have to pace yourself.
The dance section is the most physi-
cally draining, so you have to stay
hydrated, stretch and get rest. [On
matinee days] almost the entire cast
takes naps or goes home between
shows.”
Despite getting massages and physi-
cal therapy, Kelly-Sordelet recently
dislocated his right shoulder on stage,
and had to tough it out for 10 minutes
before he could get backstage and put
it back in its socket. “It was incredibly
painful,” he says. “All I was thinking
about was that you’re performing in
front of 1,000 people, and the people
on stage are relying on you to get to
the next bit.”
Then there are the hazards that
come from working with live props.
Besides the babies, one of whom
flipped over during a preview in New
York and started crawling towards
the audience before being pulled back,
the show features live geese and bun-
nies. And there’s the (small) fire that
Quentin must put out on stage. “One
time Brian turned his back and it lit
up again, so he had to pick up the
extinguisher and put it out a second
time,” says Kelly-Sordelet. “He and
Holly handled it with such grace.”
The Ferryman runs through July 7;
the only impending cast change that
he’s aware of is that in April, actress
Blair Brown will take on the role of
Aunt Maggie Far Away. In the mean-
time, Kelly-Sordelet is savoring the
experience of working with the tal-
ented, supportive cast, and looking for
an apartment in the city where
he can reside for the rest of the
run. “I learned from the last play,”
he says. ■
COURTESY
A WHOLE NEW WORLD Early in his career, Collin Kelly-Sordelet played Aladdin to fellow fourth-grader Autumn Green’s Jasmine; his most recent role is
as JJ Carney (fourth from left) in Broadway’s The Ferryman.