Jonathan Rayson
Currently: Charting the stages of romance through comic scenes and songs in the long-running off-Broadway hit I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change.
Hometown: Omaha, Nebraska
The Wedding Singer: Never mind backyard musicals or elementary-school operettas—young Jonathan was performing professionally at age seven, singing Clint Holmes' "Playground in My Mind" at weddings with his father's cover band. "My mom and I would sit in the back," he recalls, "then I would get up and do a number or two," clad in a homemade green velour jumpsuit. "My dad would sing the verse and I'd sing the chorus: 'My name is Michael, I got a nickel, I got a nickel, shiny and new.'" Awww! Rayson can't remember who first suggested he become Daddy's secret weapon, but it's clear he was destined for the spotlight. "I ran into my kindergarten teacher years later," he says, "and she told me that I would stand on the table in the classroom and spin around, serenading my friends."
Finding His Voice: After high school, Rayson jumped into the dinner theater scene in Omaha, then moved to Minneapolis with the intention of studying musical theater at the University of Minnesota. Instead, he entered an unsettled period in which he pursued an interest in interior design, followed by graphic design. "I worked for a printing company for a while, and I wanted to go into business for myself," he says. But a 12-week course based on Julia Cameron's popular book The Artist's Way got him back on track. "The course is designed to help you unlock your creativity and get to the heart of what you love to do," he explains, "and I realized that what I really wanted to do was perform. I quit my job at the printing company and, literally, the next week I got cast in something."
A Year with Frog and Seymour: When a group of NYC theater pros decamped in Minneapolis to try out a small-scale musical called A Year with Frog and Toad at the local children's theater, Rayson was tapped as the men's understudy—without an audition. The show moved to Broadway, and when leading man Jay Goede's appendix burst, Rayson went on as Frog for two weeks. Looking back, he marvels, "It would have been easy for me to say, 'I'm not interested in being an understudy in a children's show,' but I was in the right place at the right time and said yes to the right thing." The following year, another understudy gig—as Seymour in Jerry Zaks' Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors—proved equally fruitful. After Rayson went on a few times for Hunter Foster, he snagged the lead in the national tour. "I would have played Seymour in a dinner theater!" he says with a laugh. "It was a dream role in a show I love, and I still get together with the people from that tour."
Sounds of the 70s: Rayson plowed his Little Shop earnings into a personal project, his first solo CD, Shiny and New, released last year. For anyone who remembers the 70s, it's a tasty treat of pop hits ranging from "Summer, Highland Falls" and "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" to "And I Love You So" and "River." "I wanted to do an homage to my early musical roots," he says, "when I was singing with my dad—the kind of stuff I listened to on the radio with my parents. I spent all my money on the record, but I'm very proud of it."
Falling in Love: Now happily living in New York, Rayson is reveling in the varied nature of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change. "I get to play about 15 characters a night, and I have one of the best songs in the show, 'Shouldn't I Be Less in Love with You?'" he says. "I'm a ballad boy at heart." Now in its twelfth year off-Broadway, I Love You… "appeals to just about everybody," Rayson notes. "It's funny, it's touching, it's poignant; it goes through all the stages of relationships from dating to marriage and children. "There's something everyone can relate to. And for me, as an actor, it's fun to show so many different sides of myself."