Delivering the goods
North New Jersey.com
Sunday, October 16, 2005

By Robert Feldberg

When Alexander Gemignani got up to act, his father left the room. But it wasn't because of disapproval or embarrassment.

Gemignani's father is Paul Gemignani, the highly esteemed musical director, and his son was about to audition for a show - his first Broadway show - that Gemignani senior was going to conduct.

"Everyone in the room started to laugh," said Alexander Gemignani of his father's departure, as they recognized a father's anxiety.

Alexander got the part, as John Hinckley in the revival of "Assassins," but said his father had nothing do with it: "[Director] Joe Mantello was the one who wanted me."

Anyone who saw his well-acted and strongly sung performance could easily forget his connections and see a very promising young character actor.

Still, the 26-year-old Gemignani, who's appearing on Broadway this season in "Sweeney Todd," is in the typically awkward yet advantaged position of a youthful performer with show-business parents. (His mother, Carolann Page, has performed in musical theater and opera.)

"I think I'm getting work on my own merit," he said. "Maybe it's easier for me to get my foot in the door, but I still have to come up with the goods."

Gemignani, who grew up in Tenafly, said he spent lots of time as a youngster in Broadway theaters. "I saw every show that my father did. I was in the pit, the orchestra [seats], backstage."

He went to the University of Michigan to study trumpet, but after a year switched to the musical-theater program.

"I never thought that this was what I would do," he said. "But I found this is what was in my heart."

His training is useful to "Sweeney Todd," now in previews and opening at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Nov. 3. In this revival, originally staged in London, the big musical that Stephen Sondheim wrote has been pared down to 10 actors, all of whom, in lieu of an orchestra, play musical instruments.

"I play keyboards and a little trumpet," said Gemignani, who portrays the beadle, a corrupt official in league with the evil judge. (Michael Cerveris, who portrays the demented, throat-cutting barber Todd, makes his music with a guitar, while Patti LuPone, the meat-pie-making Mrs. Lovett, plays tuba.)

The beadle is usually portrayed by an older man, but Gemignani said his casting was part of the offbeat approach taken by British director John Doyle, which includes the framing device of setting the Victorian-era horror story in a modern mental institution.

"I think the main thing he was looking for was the actors' personalities," Gemignani said. "He believes there's no reason to revive a popular musical unless you reinvent it in some way. I think the audience will find aspects of 'Sweeney Todd' that they've never really seen before."