Catching up with Cardoza
John Cardoza - Jagged Little Pill (March 6, 2020)
As mentioned in my earlier blog post, I’ve really struggled to write since COVID-19 upended our world.
A week before theatre closed its doors, I interviewed John Cardoza of Jagged Little Pill. I had just seen the musical earlier that week and I was so hyped to write about it.
So, I met up with John at a cute little coffee shop he recommended near the Broadacre and we talked for about a half hour before I had to catch a bus to Philly for the weekend. I had gotten over a really bad cold the week prior and I still had a super annoying cough (back then we were coming off our first cases of coronavirus in the state and no one was really panicked about being sick - I kept hearing the cough on the audio as I transcribed and cringed).
Then I left for vacation, things started shutting down, I holed up with my family in Vegas and this interview sat on my phone...unlistened, untranscribed, unwritten...for months.
See, I had waited so long to write this piece that I didn’t know how to write it.
COVID has changed so much. Jagged Little Pill, along with all the other shows, is closed until September (at least). So writing it as a theatre piece/review would no longer work. Posting the interview (edited for length and clarity) seemed lazy.
But then there was John. Well-spoken, passionate, sensitive, lovely, kind...well, there’s a timeless story to tell.
So world, meet John Cardoza.
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Authenticity breeds opportunity.
Cardoza’s colleague said that to him once and it has sort of become a mantra for the talented young Broadway star.
“A lot of things are happening right now,” Cardoza said in that March 6th interview. “I feel like lately I have really had a major shift in my life. The last couple of months has sort of been letting go of the idea of who I think I need to be as an artist and as a person and embracing what I have creative power over now and allowing that to inform every life decision.”
Creatively, it meant flexing his dancer muscles in his Broadway debut (in December) as one of the energetic ensemble members in Jagged Little Pill and his singing muscles in his 54 Below solo debut (in March).
But for Cardoza, it also means using his voice to help others.
“I always thought to myself, if I'm ever given a platform to speak, I want to take that platform and to talk about things I'm really passionate about and things that I can make a difference in,” he said. “And I've found that opportunities to be part of causes that I really care about have just sort of fallen into my lap once I really opened myself up to speaking about them, which has been really, really cool.”
One of the issues Cardoza champions might seem surprising to many: Menstrual equity.
He started to learn about it after Jagged Little Pill’s director Diane Paulus asked each of the company members to present a topic that caught their interest. As Jagged Little Pill covers a lot of heavy issues, including sexual assault and opioid addiction, it was an exercise to familiarize the actors with causes they may not have encountered.
Cardoza said menstrual equity caught his eye “because it was one that I felt I knew the least about.”
Since then, he has worked to amplify the conversation around this topic, even hosting a talk-back in the beginning of March after a performance.
“I'm a cisgendered man and I acknowledge that I am part of the system that has wrapped this stigma around the conversation of menstrual equity, so we need to be a part of dismantling that. We're a really intricate part of dismantling that simply by listening to people who are affected by it and once we've listened, being open to having further conversation about it.”
His other championed cause is perhaps less surprising to those who know Cardoza: mental health and mental illness awareness.
“I am a big proponent for mental health. As somebody who has been on my own journey with mental illness, I think it's really important that we have conversations about it, because I think a lot of people are unaware of how many others are dealing with similar issues. And it's important not to feel alone when you're really struggling with something that feels so internal and so personal.”
And although he focuses on those issues, he does what he can to support others who are fighting the good fight.
“I've met so many people who's life experiences span this broad and beautiful spectrum, and I've learned so much from all of them,” he said. “And I think Alanis' music also really breeds a very specific type of person who really connects to humanity, and they have a tendency to be very empathetic and caring people. And so whether they're on stage or at the stage door after the show, everyone that I've met has been so warm and so kind and so open to sharing their stories and experiences with us. And it's a very special, special place to be at.”
Sharing stories was part of his theme at his 54 Below solo debut: Come Out and Play.
A cozy campfire setting, he chose to share his narrative rather than simply perform songs.
“I had a whole set list and I was excited to sing these songs that I love,” he said. “As it (was developed) I was like, ‘I love singing and I love making music but I love it because I’m a storyteller, first and foremost. I want this to be a narrative and I want this to be a passion project.’”
So in front of 200 people, he got personal.
“It sort of became, over the course of development, this cathartic and exploratory tour of the landscape of my mind over the last five years and my experience with mental health in New York and achieving your dream, as it were, and all of the external feelings that come along with that, the friends you’ve lost touch with from home and the ways you connect or disconnect with people and find your way back to people.”
He said one of the highlights was seeing all the different people he’s met in the different stages of his life sitting together in one room. From middle school friends to college, from his parents to his agent, from figure skating classmates to his college professors to the fans he connected with at stage doors.
“They really held an incredible space for me to share my experience. And it's a really beautiful thing when you connect with somebody and you're having a conversation with them and you can tell they are really here with you and they're holding you and they're listening to you and they're so present with you and I've never had that experience with like 200 people at once,” he said with a laugh. “Where I wasn't necessarily holding space for them but they were all holding space for me and I felt so much physical warmth.”
And because words without action can be empty, John, along with his producer, amplified his platform by donating their earnings from the solo show to the (National) Alliance on Mental Health.
“I felt like it was the right thing to do once we felt like this story was what it needed to be. I’m very proud of what we did and I’m very excited to do it again.”
A second show was planned for the summer, and when it does happen, it shouldn’t be missed.
“It's been a real choose-your-own adventure over the last couple of months,” Cardoza said. It's been wonderful, and it's such a relief when you start to take care of yourself. It's been a very special and a very lucky couple of months for me and I take none of it for granted.”
For more information or to support either of these causes or to help actors struggling due to COVID:
NAMI - National Alliance on Mental Health
Periods Gone Public by Jennifer Weiss-Wolf
JUST JOHN…
Time with Jagged Little Pill: 3 Years - John joined the show for the first fully staged production.
Home state: Massachusetts (he also went to the Boston Conservatory for college).
Favourite character to play: Phoenix.
Favourite part of the show: The people, on stage and off, front of house and back.
Favourite roommate: Banjo(seph) - his puppy.
The hardest part of the show: “It’s really physically taxing. It’s a three-hour show and when you’re in the ensemble track, you’re moving non-stop, whether you’re on stage or off stage. You are running to a quick change or getting ready to go on to the next crazy thing or you’re dancing or you’re up and down flights of stairs. Once that harmonica blows (to open the show), you are just going for three hours. Learning how to take care of my body has been a real learning curve for me.”
Musical instrument of choice: Banjo. “Folk-pop is one of my favourite genres of music. I have music playing in my apartment at all times, just in the background, and so much of it is banjo music. And it is a sound that I love. There's something about the sound of the banjo, I just wanted to hear it all the time.”
Cool skill: Photography. “I have some really wonderful friends … who are incredible artists and photographers. I was around them so much for such a long time that I just became really accustomed to a certain quality of image and I wanted to see what I could make out of it. I really love film photography. It’s physical and because it’s so in-the-moment, it feels really infused with what’s happening at that time. It has kind of a magical quality to it. I keep my camera at the theatre and I … love just documenting my life backstage with it and keeping track of really fun moments.”
Surprising and super cool tidbit: John was a figure skater, which was his first foray into performing. He said he loved the sport but he didn’t love to compete.