Growing up with parents with a background in Shakespearean acting, it’s no surprise that Rachel Bay Jones found a home in the theater.
She still remembers at age 11 flipping through one of her mother’s scripts on the kitchen counter of their Boca Raton home.
Today, she is a first-time Tony Award nominee for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her role as single mother Heidi Hansen in “Dear Evan Hansen.” The Broadway hit, which illustrates a teen’s internal conflict with identity turned social media scandal and emphasizes acceptance of the imperfect, has earned nine nominations. The winners will be announced at 8 p.m. June 11 during a ceremony at Radio City Music Hall.
“I’m really excited. It’s something that I thought would never really happen, and to have it happen now has been a wonderful thing,” said Jones, 47, from her home in New York City.
When she thinks back to her Broadway beginning, she laughs at how long it’s taken to reach this point.
She left Spanish River High School for a local show and continued to act. At age 19, she was understudy to the lead in Broadway’s “Meet Me in St. Louis,” but took a 20-year hiatus before returning for parts in “Hair,” “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” and “Pippin.”
After moving around a bit, Jones is now settled in Manhattan, where she lives with her partner and actor, Benim Foster, and her daughter, Miranda. Although they both got their start in South Florida — Foster grew up in Plantation — the couple didn’t meet until later in life, when they were both cast in “Modern Orthodox” with the Caldwell Theatre Co.
According to Foster, Jones’ success was always going to happen.
“I could’ve told you right off the bat,” said Foster, who is working on “At the Old Place” at La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, Calif. “When I met Rachel, the first time I heard her sing, I was like, ‘Wait, who is this person? And why doesn’t anyone know who she is, her talent and her beauty? The world needs to hear her!”
During Jones’ decades between Broadway, she spent time living and working in South Florida. “The lifestyle is so different from New York City. But so many people in Florida are connected to New York, that it feels like a natural progression to go back and forth,” Jones said. “But when you’re in New York, the South Florida lifestyle is something that you really come to appreciate when you’re not living in it, in such an urban environment.
“The fact that you can have all of the natural beauty that exists in Florida and the comfort of living [there], coupled with, surprise, who knew, there’s also really great work being done down there in the theater — really edgy and cutting-edge work,” she added. “People really care about the work, and it’s such a strong bonded community. A lot of times, in different regions around the country, there’s not enough work to sustain a pool of actors and directors, but historically there has been in South Florida. The fact that people can actually work and make a living as actors has really created a rich, artistic life down there.”
These days, Jones said her biggest challenge is balancing her personal and work realities, which is made especially difficult because she identifies with many aspects of her current role as a struggling single mother to the main character, Evan, in “Dear Evan Hansen.” Since Jones and Foster are both working actors and parents, their family dynamic breaks the mold, and “Dear Evan Hansen” continually reminds them that there is no such thing as “perfect.”
“When you’re involved this deeply in the artistic process, you see everything in a different way. All of us in the show, we’re talking to our family, and we’re opening up differently. We’re looking at our loved ones in a new way, and I think the audience is having that same experience,” Jones said.
“Our setup at home is not the norm. We’ll be working at night and our daughter will go to school during the day, so we won’t spend as much time with her. Rather than judge yourself on how your life is, or how you are as a parent, this is where Heidi sometimes comes into play, [focus on] loving and accepting who you are and how things are. There is no perfect or norm. Family is what you make of it.”
Jones and costar Jennifer Laura Thompson, who plays another mother, Cynthia, in the musical, created the Twitter hashtag #MomsOfEvanHansen to interact with their audience in a new way and say, “Hey! Don’t forget about the moms!” According to Jones, the responses have been touching. She and Thompson are most grateful when audience members tell her that after watching the show, their perspectives have changed.
“We’re talking anywhere from teenager to adult kids who are looking at it and saying, ‘I forgive my mother, I’m calling my mother more.'”
Jones is thankful for kindnesses given to her by the theater community, especially in South Florida, and she advises aspiring actors to take advantage of the resources and community around them. “The most important thing is to remember why you’re doing this work,” she said.
“We’re not doing it for the end goal of being nominated for a Tony Award. If that comes about as a result of our work, it’s that much sweeter. The important thing is to remember that you’re an artist, you have a voice, and you need to use it. Make art. Create.”
cherring@sun-sentinel.com, @cady_herring or 561-228-5549
