Michele Pawk on the Joys of Acting, Teaching and Mothering Jonathan Groff in Just in Time

Michele Pawk’s life in the theater extends far beyond her career as a Tony-winning Broadway actress. Now wowing audiences at Just in Time as Polly, the woman who raised singer Bobby Darin, Pawk spent the past 14 years training the next generation of stage stars as a professor and director of student productions at Wagner College in Staten Island, New York. She is married to a Tony-nominated actor, John Dossett, and their son, Jack, is spending the summer performing in musicals in upstate New York. (Click here to see Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek’s home visit with Pawk and Dossett when the two were sharing the stage as Madame Morrible and the Wizard in the 20th anniversary cast of Wicked.)

Since winning her Tony for playing a character based on Carol Burnett’s alcoholic mother in Hollywood Arms, Pawk has pivoted between musicals (Cabaret, Beautiful, Wicked) and plays (Will Arbery’s Pulitzer Prize finalist Heroes of the Fourth Turning). Just in Time is her second go-round mothering Jonathan Groff, after Craig Lucas’ 2008 off-Broadway drama Prayer for My Enemy, and Groff himself coaxed her into accepting the role of Polly. In the newly glammed-up Circle in the Square Theatre, Pawk looks perfectly at home singing “Some of These Days” and “That’s All” in Catherine Zuber’s gorgeous costumes.

Are you having fun in the most glamorous show on Broadway?

Yes, and who knew? I don’t think any of us had any idea of the impact. We were just having fun, and it’s such a joy that those feelings have translated. The show looks like a million bucks and sounds like a million bucks. I feel super lucky.

Did you have an affinity for this kind of pop music?

A hundred percent. My dad turned me on to the big-band singers, so I knew this entire canon. What’s cool is that a lot of the people who come to the show don’t know anything about the music or the story of Bobby Darin.

It’s so smart that Jonathan Groff enters as himself and explains that he will be playing Bobby Darin.

I agree, and it gives him—and the rest of us [in the cast], quite frankly—carte blanche not to have to imitate someone. I am a dear friend and superfan of Jonathan, who played my son years ago in a Craig Lucas play. I just adore that boy, so when he was putting this together and asked me to be involved, it was hard to say no. He makes every one of us on stage better.

How so?

He is so honest and so present with every audience, and he invites the rest of us to do the same. That’s a gift. Objectively speaking, what Jonathan is doing in this show is on another level. When a part meets an actor who is at the top of their game and allows them to bring everything they have to the stage, it’s extraordinary to witness every night.

As a veteran of Merrily We Roll Along [Pawk played Franklin’s second wife Gussie in a 1994 off-Broadway revival], you must appreciate how Jonathan’s performance as Franklin changed people’s minds about that show.

Yes, that entire production! It’s always interesting to revisit a show you know so intimately. Steve [Sondheim] was very much present during our production, and I have such a special place for it because I know how dear it was to him. So, to see a deep, rich [new] production was incredible. Some people are so innately likeable, no matter how mean or dark [their character gets], you see the person underneath. Jonathan is one of those people, and so is my husband [actor John Dossett].

You met John in the 1993 musical Hello Again, and the two of you recently did Wicked together. What do you enjoy about working with him?

He brings joy to everything he does. I think anyone at Wicked or Newsies or War Paint would tell you that my husband is a leader. Before every show, he walks around to everyone’s dressing room and checks in with people. That’s old school. The Wizard in Wicked doesn’t enter until way late in the first act and [interacts with only] two other characters, but that’s how he ensconced himself in that company. He went around to everyone’s room and handed out mints, which he became famous for.

How do the two of you balance your careers and avoid competitiveness?

Any success of his feels like a success for me, and I think he would say the same. Being parents was the hardest part, figuring out how to juggle and navigate that, with the help of stage management teams who said, “Sure, you can bring your kid to work.” I had just had our boy in 2000 when I was doing Seussical, and our stage manager, along with the producers, let me hire someone to keep him in my dressing room. My son took his first steps in the Richard Rodgers Theatre.

And now he’s following his parents into acting.

He’s on his way up to Mac-Haydn, a summer stock theater in Chatham, New York, to do a season of big musicals. It’s such a great training ground. He has witnessed the highs and the lows [of acting careers], so he knows that this is a craft, and you should only do it if you love it.

Thank goodness he’s talented!

You know what the truth is? Yes, you have to have talent, but success is really about the work ethic. There are a lot of super-talented people, but if they don’t burn to do this, if they don’t have the discipline to get out of bed, study and challenge themselves, the career will pass them by.

It must feel good to know that you jumped from an incredible play, Heroes of the Fourth Turning, to Wicked and now Just in Time.

And during the first two, I was also teaching full time. I have always thought that musicals are just plays with music, which is one of the things I appreciated most about the Just in Time development process. The scenes with Jonathan and the family feel very rich and honest and lived-in.

You spent more than a decade as a professor in a highly regarded theater program. What did you enjoy most about that?

Oh, I truly loved teaching. [Wagner] is a small liberal arts college, and it meant a lot to be part of a faculty that could inspire and nurture and help these kids to be their best selves. That program is special. I worked a lot [on and off-Broadway] while I was there, but I knew that this show, a new show, would be too demanding. I needed to give this my full attention.

You also directed a ton of musicals at Wagner. Are you ever tempted to give your Broadway directors pointers?

No! [laughs] I am nowhere near the echelon of any of the directors I’ve worked with. To be honest, I just wanted to be in the room with [Just in Time director] Alex Timbers. I love that he continues to challenge himself and doesn’t want to do the same thing over and over. He is so collaborative and open, and I’m inspired by that. And, of course, Jonathan and the entire company are just incredible. I am really, really glad I said yes.