Florida Studio Theatre steps into Johnny Cash’s ‘Ring of Fire’

For most of the last 15 years, Scott Moreau could almost get away with introducing himself by saying, “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.”

He has played the Man in Black country/folk singer in a variety of shows from the first national tour of “Million Dollar Quartet” to his own tribute concerts.

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He also has starred in countless productions of the 2006 Broadway musical “Ring of Fire,” which brings him to Sarasota for a new staging at Florida Studio Theatre, where it begins performances this week.

Even after singing many of the same songs hundreds, if not thousands, of times, playing Cash never gets boring.

“I just love him so much it would never get old to me. It is fresh every time because I’m working with different people,” Moreau said in a recent Zoom conference call with his director Ben Hope and co-stars Elizabeth Nestlerode, who plays June Carter Cash and Katie Barton, the costume designer who also plays multiple roles.

“I take this very seriously. I’m constantly learning more and more about him,” Moreau said. “New recordings are coming out all the time. I subscribe to things on YouTube. I’ve met people who knew Johnny in real life and I’m constantly getting stories about what it was like to be around him and I try to extrapolate all that into the performance. I’m always trying to fine tune.”

All four of the artists are veterans of “Ring of Fire” and worked together on another regional production last summer.

“I’ve played Johnny Cash and been in a lot of productions,” said Hope, who worked on “Ring of Fire” after its Broadway run when the script was revised. He is married to Barton, and said he considers them co-directors.

The Broadway version, conceived by William Meade and created by Richard Maltby Jr., ran for about six weeks in 2006. It was later revised by Maltby and Jason Edwards for touring and regional productions with a smaller cast and a better focus on the music and the story of Cash’s life.

“All the dialogue comes directly from his autobiography from 2013. It’s like you’re in his lap and he’s telling stories,” Hope said. Barton has played June Carter Cash in some productions and this time she, along with the rest of the cast, plays multiple characters. They include Eric Scott Anthony and Morgan Morse.

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Hope said while Cash was known for his music and a hard-scrabble life before he became famous, “he was a real intellectual, an avid reader. He wrote every single day, songs, journal entries, for 60 years. He was a collector of antique books. He was a world traveler. He had an intellectual sense about him and even though his songs were simple, they were so impactful. His intellect allowed him to say a complicated thing simply. Whether you know the music or don’t, everyone finds something to connect to.”

Producing Artistic Director Richard Hopkins describes Cash’s musical storytelling as “deep, honest and real. He had this unique willingness to feel deeply. That’s one of the many reasons he had such a profound impact on American music and his work continues to resonate with us to this day.”

The score includes such songs as “Thing Called Love,” “My Old Faded Rose,” “If I Were a Carpenter,” “I’ve Been Everywhere,” “A Boy Named Sue,” “Folsom Prison Blues” and “I Walk the Line,” among others by Cash, his wife, and other writers.

Nestlerode, who last appeared at FST as the Girl in the 2018 production of “Once,” said she has been impressed by June Carter Cash and how she rose “as a woman in a boys’ club. She actually wrote the song ‘Ring of Fire.’ They were a true original power couple who brought out so much in each other and challenged each other to be their best selves.”

Barton, who has performed the role before, said June is “intimidating to play. It’s intimidating to play any real human because you want to honor them. But once the show gets going, you kind of get lost in it. She was such a comedienne. She’s got that old school clever humor and we don’t tell jokes like that anymore.”

Barton said after many experiences with “Ring of Fire,” she was reminded during the first day of music rehearsals of how it stays vibrant in her mind as the cast worked through “Waiting on the Far Side Banks of Jordan.”

“It’s a lovely gospel song but it just struck me anew because this is the first time we’re doing this show as parents and it just hit me in a different way,” she said.

Hope recalled that Maltby said the show was created to conjure the spirit of Johnny Cash. It tells the story of his life chronologically but with songs pulled from different points of his life to emphasize some aspect of that story.

“It’s Johnny Cash arriving at a train station between this life and the next. I just got chills thinking of it,” Hope said. “Trains were such a major part of his life. There are so many songs about trains and he grew up near train tracks. He was always transient, on the move. His life was traveling as fast as you can go.”

‘Ring of Fire’

Created by Richard Maltby Jr., conceived by William Meade, adapted by Maltby and Jason Edwards. Directed by Ben Hope. Runs June 1-19. Florida Studio Theatre Gompertz Theatre, 1265 First St., Sarasota. 941-366-9000; floridastudiotheatre.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota’s FST sings the life of Johnny Cash in ‘Ring of Fire’