Adam Garcia: ‘The first show I did came to the UK in 1994. I thought: Yep. This is where I want to be’
You might recognise him from Wicked, Murder on the Orient Express, or even ITV’s The Masked Dancer. As he lands on 42nd Street, Adam Garcia tells Fergus Morgan about the road that got him there and moments that have made up his career
Adam Garcia is not as young as he was. The Australian actor and dancer turned 50 earlier this month and, although his dancing days are far from over, his feet do not fly as fast as they once did. His career, he says, is entering another era – one in which he will create and choreograph more.
“I love dance,” Garcia says. “I’ve been dancing since I was seven. But I am now at that age where I can’t dance for an hour and a half, eight shows a week. I have always been interested in directing and storytelling through the vocabulary of dance, though, and I have choreographed bits and pieces before. I want to do more of that. I find it so fulfilling to create cohesive narratives with dance.”
Born in 1973, Garcia grew up on the outskirts of Sydney. He started training as a tap dancer from a young age, discovered theatre as a teenager and dropped out of a degree at Sydney University to start a career in professional performance. His first show, the Australian musical Hot Shoe Shuffle, transferred to London in 1994, and he has been based there ever since. “I was very lucky,” he says. “The first show I did came over to the UK, and I was like: ‘Yep. This is where I want to be.’ ”
Garcia has traversed stage and screen over his subsequent 30-year career. On stage, he played Tony Manero – the John Travolta character – in the original West End cast of Saturday Night Fever, Fiyero in the original West End cast of Wicked and Bill Calhoun in Trevor Nunn’s 2012 revival of Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate. On screen, meanwhile, he appeared in both Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot movies – Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile – and recently finished as runner-up in the second series of The Masked Dancer on ITV, pipped to first place by Glee’s Heather Morris.
What production made you fall in love with theatre?
It was The Rocky Horror Show. I was 10 or 11 – too young to see it, either way. The sex stuff went over my head, but it was so full of swearing and weirdness. The costumes were wild and Reg Livermore’s performance was so charismatic. I thought it was brilliant.
What are you finding inspiring at the moment?
I love anything Ashley Banjo and Diversity create. I think they are absolutely amazing. I saw Nederlands Dans Theater at Sadler’s Wells a few weeks ago, too. They are outrageous. Crystal Pite is one of the most extraordinary choreographers of our time.
What do you wish you could change about the performing arts industry?
My biggest bugbear – and it seems to be getting worse – has always been people eating food during performances. As an audience member and a performer, I find it so distracting when audiences eat from loud packaging. Do people really need to eat as if they are sitting at home on their sofas?
What is the worst thing that has happened to you on stage?
Oh, there have been lots. The worst one was being about a minute and a half late for my cue in Wicked. I’d spilled water down my white jodhpurs and was drying them out with a hairdryer. Idina Menzel and everyone in the cast and creative team was waiting for me, vamping. I remember the chilling terror when I realised that I’d missed my entrance. I can laugh about it now.
What is the best thing that has happened to you on stage?
The biggest one was the opening night of Saturday Night Fever, when I was revealed as Tony Manero, standing in the iconic John Travolta pose. I remember looking out at the London Palladium and thinking: ‘Shit. This is bigger than I thought.’
What role do you really want to play?
I would like to come full circle and play Dr Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show. That would be so much fun.
What projects are you involved in at the moment?
I am playing Julian Marsh in 42nd Street, which opened in Leicester, is now at London’s Sadler’s Wells until early July, then tours all year. It is a classic, and as a tap dancer, it is a lot of fun. There are not that many big tap-dancing musicals, and 42nd Street is a tap-dancing musical about a tap-dancing musical.
I am not doing the tour, though, as I am doing a film in Australia, possibly going to Mexico to do another film and choreographing a show in August that starts touring in September as well. That show is called Emerald Storm and it is a real blend of traditional Irish dance and tap.
I am also in a film called The Performance, which is coming out later this year or early in 2024. It is based on the last short story Arthur Miller wrote, and it is about a vaudevillian troupe in Nazi Germany in 1935. It is a thriller about people finding themselves in the worst place at the worst time.
42nd Street is at Sadler’s Wells, London, until July 2, then touring. Visit: sadlerswells.com
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