Jeffrey Stephen will soon find himself following in the footsteps of Kevin Bacon, Benicio Del Toro and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.
It’s not just because the affable Victoria actor — best known for his roles in Victoria Operatic Society productions — acted on stage before seguing into movies.
It’s that he’s been accepted into New York’s prestigious Circle in the Square Theatre School, where he’ll spend his summer in a musical-theatre workshop.
Stephen, who works as a mechanical engineering instructor at Camosun College, says he literally jumped for joy when he learned he had made the cut.
It’s a big deal, since only 90 performers are selected from hundreds of applicants worldwide each year for the intensive professional theatre training program.
The legendary theatre-in-the-round at 1633 Broadway has hosted some major-league shows, notably 2015’s Tony Award winner Fun Home.
A who’s who of stage and screen greats has walked its boards, including Julie Christie, Rex Harrison, Dustin Hoffman, George C. Scott, Eli Wallach and Al Pacino.
Stephen, 41, is well-equipped for the challenge, as one of this town’s most prolific musical-theatre performers.
He was particularly memorable as Chris Scott, the American G.I. who falls for a Vietnamese bar girl in Miss Saigon; as Jean Valjean, the tormented ex-convict in Les Miserables; and for his buffoonishly entertaining performance as Sir Lancelot in Spamalot.
The actor, currently playing screenwriter Joe Gillis in the VOS production of Sunset Boulevard, has more recently become a familiar sight on local movie sets.
His screen credits include playing a culinary student in The Gourmet Detective; a cop investigating a Black Widow-like teacher who has a destructive affair with a student in Deadly Lessons; and a character whose murder at the hands of a mob boss forces his wife and child to go into witness protection in the crime thriller of the same name filmed on a yacht in Cowichan Bay.
“I hope after this training to be seen as a more valid candidate for some of these roles,” said Stephen, who was initially daunted by the prospect of applying for the Circle in the Square program.
“The thought of just applying takes a certain amount of confidence. It’s the only professional training program associated with a Broadway theatre.”
He toyed with the idea of pursuing the opportunity to learn “on Broadway, in the theatre district, right in Times Square” for a year and a half before gaining enough confidence to do it, he said.
The application process, which took five months, is laborious. It involves considerable paperwork, sending off résumés, head shots and letters of reference, before waiting to find out if you’ll be invited to audition.
While Stephen waited, he worried he wasn’t going to make it and questioned why he was even trying.
“I told myself: ‘I’ve just got to give them a good opportunity to say no and if they do, I’ll be fine with that and never wonder ‘what-if?’ ” said Stephen.
After he received an official invitation to audition, he began an exhaustive rehearsal process. He hired coaches to prep for Shakespeare monologues, and prepared a musical recording with local pianist and arranger Jim Hill.
“It’s almost like musical theatre karaoke,” he said with a laugh, recalling how part of his 15-minute audition in New York involved singing to instrumental music they had pre-recorded in Hill’s home studio.
“Jim did such an amazing job with his custom orchestration,” said Stephen, who performed an abridged version of Why God Why? from Miss Saigon.
“He’s very well-rehearsed at auditioning people, and Miss Saigon was such a great theatrical experience for me and I knew the character so well.”
For his Shakespeare monologue, Stephen said he was inspired by NOW: In the Wings of a World Stage, Kevin Spacey’s documentary chronicling his collaboration with Sam Mendes on a world tour of Richard III.
Now that he’s Broadway-bound, he has pledged “not to set the ultimate goal too high, because it leaves room for disappointment.”
“If I come back to Victoria and all I do is perform for local audiences at a higher level, I will have still succeeded,” said Stephen, adding he’s grateful that Camosun College has given him the freedom to do it.
“There’s another part of my personality that’s been yelling at me to acknowledge that I’d like to pursue this,” he said, recalling what he told his superiors.
“I said: ‘If I do, I need to know you’d be supportive.’ They said by all means.”