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Jorrel Javier stood in front of a crowd of over 2,000 people seated in the stunning Nederlander Theatre in Chicago. Those 2,000 individuals clapped, yelled and hollered for the cast of the show. Javier bowed and faced the audience. That moment — a moment of gratitude, joy and peace — is one that Javier will remember for the rest of his life.
Javier, who graduated from Texas State University in 2018 with a BFA in musical theatre, viscerally recalls the opening night of the tour of “The Lightning Thief, The Percy Jackson Musical.”
“It was the most cathartic moment because I just knew that in that moment that my life was going to be changed for the better,” Javier said. “I didn’t know how much, but I knew that it was changed.”
After opening night on Jan. 9, Javier toured the nation for seven and a half months performing in the musical adaptation of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series by Rick Riordan.
Two weeks after the tour ended, Javier got the call of a lifetime: he was going to Broadway. The show will play for 16 weeks, from Sept. 20 - Jan. 5, 2020.
Javier said Broadway was a dream that he once thought was unattainable. Now, he will play the substantial role of Grover, the best friend of the main protagonist.
“I walked by the Broadway marquees the other day, and I saw my face on it,” Javier said. “And I kind of just stood there. I didn’t really know how to process this, because, for such a long time, it was only a dream … And all of a sudden, it went from being a dream to an achievable goal and then from a goal to a reality.”
Javier dances during Texas State’s Legally Blonde. Photo courtesy of Jorrel Javier
Javier said he is incredibly humbled by the fact that his Broadway dream happened with such speed. As a middle schooler, Javier poured over the Percy Jackson series.
“The books were really huge part of my adolescence, right, I grew up loving them,” Javier said. “I knew everything about the series, I knew the characters very well. And so it was kind of serendipitous that it was happening.”
In the midst of his success, Javier remains grateful for the educators and professors who invested time in his life.
“And so I feel like as much as it is my victory and my achievement, it’s very much so also the achievement of the various professors at Texas State who saw something in me and kept me going, gave me words of affirmation, and to all of the educators who decided that I was worth investing their time in,” Javier said. “To every dance teacher, to every voice lesson, it’s been a huge collaborative effort for everyone.”
Before attending Texas State, Javier lived in Torrance, California. In 2001, Javier’s family moved to Torrence from the Philippines. Even though Javier’s family is primarily involved in the medical industry, they remained supportive of Javier’s decision to pursue a career in musical theatre.
“They came to this country in search of a better life, in search of a better future for their children and they let me do that,” Javier said. “They let me go on and pursue what I wanted to do — to pursue what I was good at.”
Though he has traveled the nation on tour and lived on two separate coasts, Javier said San Marcos remains one of his favorite places in the world.
“San Marcos tends to feel actually more like home than my hometown does at times,” Javier said. “Whenever I go back to San Marcos, I feel that familial pull, I feel that comfort ... kind of like the knowledge that everything is going to fall into place and be okay.”
When it comes to his upcoming debut on Broadway, Javier is most looking forward to the representation the cast of the show will bring, as more than half of the cast is comprised of people of color, according to Javier.
“We’re in this really exciting part of the industry where representation is finally starting to happen —where actors are speaking up, or producers are speaking up, where playwrights are writing people of color roles for people of color, by people of color,” Javier said.
When he steps on to the stage next week, Javier knows he will stand before the next generation of young people who look up to the cast.
“When those little kids come to see the show when those little teenagers who may or may not be deciding whether or not they want to do this for the rest of their life, when they come and see our show … they’re going to see people who look like them,” Javier said. “And I hope that it empowers them to know that it is our time to take the mic on the stage.”
