John Gallagher Jr.
Age: 22
Currently: Raging through puberty to the beat of Duncan Sheik's rock score as eraser-headed, pigeon-toed student Moritz in the new Broadway musical Spring Awakening.
Hometown: Wilmington, Delaware. "I've been auditioning and working at this for 10 years," Gallagher says, recalling his early days as a performer at the Wilmington Drama League and the Delaware Children's Theatre. "I was never pushed [into acting], but people were always saying, 'You have a really special thing, and you can do what you want with it." At 13, he signed with the manager he still has today and began traveling back and forth to New York for professional acting jobs.
Fruitful Collaboration: At 16, Gallagher made his New York stage debut in Current Events at Manhattan Theatre Club, then participated in a workshop and two productions of David Lindsay-Abaire's off-the-wall play, Kimberly Akimbo. He and Lindsay-Abaire hit it off, leading to collaborations on the U.K. premiere of Fuddy Meers and last season's Broadway production of Rabbit Hole. Gallagher played the pivotal role of a teen driver who kills Cynthia Nixon's young son in a car accident. "When I read it, I thought, 'Oh my goodness. I can't believe he has the faith in me to bring this beautiful character to life,'" says Gallagher. "And having known David for four years by then, I was just so proud of him. I thought it was the best thing he had written." The loyal young actor defends Lindsay-Abaire from critics who question the playwright's mix of comedy and tragedy: "That, to me, is a pointless criticism because what is life if not hilarious and terribly tragic all in the same day? Those are the kinds of things I'm drawn to."
Say What? Gallagher was actually far more prepared for a rock musical than he would have you think, given that his parents are semi-pro folk musicians and he has played in bands since he started his first—Not Now Murray—at age 15. Next came What Now, a combination of the Murray trio and another band called the Urban Wombats, which featured harmony-driven a cappella tunes; then a pop/punk group called Annie's Autograph. These days, he moonlights solo, performing his own reflective tunes as Johnny Gallagher, or with his current band, Old Springs Pike. "We play folk music as if it were punk rock music," he says with a grin. "Somebody once described our concert as being friendly-acoustic-heavy metal."
Rock On: "I had never really seen anything on Broadway that I felt sufficiently rocked," Gallagher reflects. "Some things came pretty close, but it's always been at more classical shows, like the revivals of Assassins and Sweeney Todd, that I felt like I had a rock-and-roll experience because of their energy. And now Spring Awakening is somewhere right in the middle: It has this lush, gorgeous sound with the melodies and the strings, but also rock songs that feel like they could be by a band." That balance is something he tries to achieve in playing Moritz, looking to punk-to-pop crossover icons like Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day for inspiration. "With a character like Moritz, you have to be careful because he is so angsty and there is so much energy. If there's too much of a punk rock edge, it may push people away."
You're Too Kind: With this high-profile Broadway gig comes a lot of attention, including being recognized on the subway and listening politely to fans predicting a Tony nod. "It's January!" he protests. But Gallagher is keeping his head on straight and his hair straight up. "The fact that we earned these unanimously rave reviews is insane to me," he says. "But without sounding full of myself and full of the show I'm in, I feel they're deserved in the sense of knowing how hard Duncan and Steven and [director] Michael [Mayer] worked at this. And us too…yeah," he says when pressed out of his modesty. "It's really exciting. It's unlike anything I've ever been a part of."
