New parents forge ahead as stars of ‘John & Jen’ musical after their baby’s birth

Real-life couple Braelin Andrzejewski and Robert Kowalewski have been doing theater together for a decade. But they've never spent as much time acting opposite each other as they are now in the two-person musical "John & Jen" at Western Reserve Playhouse.

The Pittsburgh transplants, who attended college together at Robert Morris University outside Pittsburgh, moved to the Cleveland area in 2016 for the region's brighter theater scene.

The Euclid residents take the theater adage "the show must go on" very seriously: They're putting on the two-person chamber musical "John & Jen" starting July 22, just about two months after the birth of their baby, Florence Julie Roberts.

The couple, both 28, found out that Andrzejewski was expecting at the same time they learned they were cast to co-star in the musical, back in December.

"We didn't want to give up on the show," said Andrzejewski, who's content and marketing coordinator for the Bath theater.

The couple stressed that both director Daniel Hunsicker and theater Executive Artistic Director Dawn Sniadak-Yamokoski have been very supportive and understanding about rehearsing around their daughter's birth.

The director and actors came up with a plan to start rehearsals in Andrzejewski's third trimester. She then took a three-week maternity leave after Florence's birth May 28, after which the couple came back for what will be nearly five weeks of rehearsal.

Baby Florence, they said, is in very good hands being cared for while they're at rehearsal each night.

Even so, "there is a significant part of our brains that's at home right now thinking of that little bean," dad Kowalewski said of baby Florence before rehearsal June 29.

Andrzejewski and Kowalewski both performed in Western Reserve Playhouse's "Forbidden Broadway" when she was seven months along in her pregnancy. That gave her the chance to spoof musical theater even more as a pregnant Annie from the musical of the same name.

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Scene partners

In 2014, the couple played potential love interests Jo and Laurie in "Little Women" in the Pittsburgh area but they didn't get to sing together in that show. Now, they sing together for the entire "John & Jen" show, which is about 90% sung-through with music written by Andrew Lippa.

"This is the first time that we actually get to be scene partners together," Kowalewski said.

As John and Jen, Andrzejewski and Kowalewski do not play love interests. In this story, set in the 1950s through the 1980s, Jen is John's big sister who tries to protect him from an abusive father. The first act follows them through childhood, with Jen growing up to become antiwar as John enters the Vietnam War, where he is killed.

"They obviously take two very different paths out of that same trauma" from childhood, said director Hunsicker, making his directorial debut at Western Reserve Playhouse.

He said the intimate show, which premiered Off-Broadway in 1995 and had a 20th anniversary Off-Broadway revival in 2015, is rarely produced in Northeast Ohio. Broadview Heights Spotlights last did the show in 2012, music directed by the late Deborah Ingersoll, who was well known for her work in the Akron area. First Grace United Church of Christ also did a concert version of the show as a fundraiser in 2011.

"It was a very powerful show that stuck with me," Hunsicker said of the Broadway Heights production of "John & Jen. "I introduced it to Dawn [Sniadak-Yamokoski] and she listened to it and she was like, 'I just can't stop thinking about it now.' "

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In the second act of this show, which is about relationships and healing, Andrzejewski's Jen has become a mother who has named her son, played by Kowalewski, John in honor of her late brother. This act follows John as he tries to find his way in a confusing world as Jen becomes increasingly dependent on her son.

The story is told through Jen's perspective in the manner of a memory play, so it's the writers' purposeful decision to have the same actor play both Johns.

Aging characters

Throughout the show, Andrzejewski faces the acting challenge of playing her character from age 5 to 44. Kowalewski, who plays two different Johns, portrays ages 5 to 19.

The actors achieve the differences in ages partially through body language, with young John being looser with his childlike movements and military-age John being much more prim and proper. Both actors play their younger selves with more animated gestures.

As far as sounding different ages, "you have to have sort of this spark in your voice that indicates your youth without it being singing in a little kid voice," Andrzejewski said.

These actors who are real-life partners also must constantly think about the fact that they're not playing a couple. It helps that Jen is a motherly sister, which translates into her later role as a mother.

"We feel weird playing brother and sister," Andrzejewski divulged.

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"John & Jen" features a highly dense musical score that has the two characters mostly singing in counterpoint. Their harmonies clash to show their discord but at times are well synchronized to reflect moments in the story where the characters are unified.

"In the end, it's a dramatic musical piece too, and I love a good challenge," Kowalewski said.

Andrzejewski said with this complex score, it's just as difficult to sing the role of Jen as a 5-year-old as when she's 44. It's a vocally demanding show that both were drawn to. Andrzejewski knew a number of Jen's songs, which she's been singing them as a musical theater performer and auditioner for years.

"It's not just pretty music. You actually get a really interesting, deep story to dive into," Andrzejewski said.

Arts and restaurant writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com.

Details

Show: "John & Jen"

When: Opening Friday, continuing through July 31, 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays

Where: Western Reserve Playhouse, 3326 Everett Road, Bath

Onstage: Braelin Andrzejewski and Robert Kowalewski

Offstage: Andrew Lippa, music; Tom Greenwald, lyrics; Andrew Lippa and Tom Greenwald, book; Daniel Hunsicker, director; Dave Michaels, musical director; Brittany Bizub, stage manager

Cost: $20

Information: 330-620-7314, www.thewrp.org

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Show must go on for new parents in Western Reserve's ‘John & Jen'