Widely known as Broadway’s golden couple, Marin Mazzie and Jason Danieley have had long careers on the Great White Way, earning a number of nods in the process. Tony Award nominee Mazzie is set to return to Broadway this month, to play the lead role of Anna in The King and I, while Emmy-nominated Danieley just returned to the Broadway boards himself, as Billy Flynn in Chicago. Westchester residents will have the opportunity to see these true stars of stage in person when they perform at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts in Katonah on May 14.
How did you first become involved in the stage?
MM: I grew up in Rockford, Illinois, and both my parents loved all different kinds of music. I started singing when I was very young, and the things I gravitated toward were the musicals. I would say performing was just something that was within me.
JD: My dad was a preacher, my mother played the organ at church, and my grandmother played the piano. I started singing when I was four in my dad’s church with my mom playing, and the thing that really made me want to perform was watching my dad tell a different story every week and have something to say that affected people’s lives.
How did you meet each other?
MM: We did a show together Off-Broadway in the summer of 1996 called Trojan Women: A Love Story. When the actress playing Dido was let go, I replaced her, and Jason and I ended up playing opposite each other, as two characters who fall in love at first sight—and that is exactly what happened. We knew within about five days that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.
JD: Actually, the show that we are going to be doing for Caramoor is called He Said, She Said, and it tells that story of how we met and fell in love doing Trojan Women through [musical] standards. When we perform this in Caramoor’s Music Room, it will be 19 years and 11 months since Mazzie and I met.
Why do you keep returning to Broadway?
MM: The theater is such a great vehicle for storytelling. I think we are both very attracted to live performance and having the audience as another element of the evening. The experience is different every night because the audience is different every night. I feel blessed that we get to keep telling great stories in this amazing city.
