By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

The stage door to Disney’s “Aladdin” on Broadway, says “A wish on a lamp.”

It wasn’t a wish, but hard work that made Hays native Jacob Gutierrez’s dream come true as he made his Broadway debut in ‘Aladdin’ on May 25. Jacob, 28, son of Mario and Karen Gutierrez, has been cast in the ensemble of “Aladdin.”

“That night when I went on, it was quite overwhelming, and I have to admit there were moments when I completely blacked out. It was all fine because it is in your body, but I remember being in the middle of ‘Prince Ali,’ waving these fans thinking, ‘Where am I?’ There are lights on you. During the opening number, there is this huge men’s dance break, and I looked to my left and saw this guy who is in my cast, Josh, whose costume is purple and Stanley in his yellow costume and I thought ‘What is happening right now? Is this really happening?’ ”

After the performance, Gutierrez talked to his fellow cast members, and they all said the same things happened to them on their debut nights.

“It is pretty overwhelming,” Gutierrez said. “Beyond that, you have a house full of 1,700 people you are looking out at, and every seat is filled. It is a lot. If anything, it is just over stimulating because all of your senses are so elevated because of everything.”

Gutierrez said the musical is very demanding.

“I am in every single group number,” he said. “I am dancing. I am dancing. I am dancing. There is a lot of choreography. It is a very grand show, so every single production number is large and there are many moving parts.”

Gutierrez wears 12 costumes in the show with multiple quick changes. During the opening of Act II during a parade scene, the creators wanted the illusion of 150 people out of 20-member ensemble cast. So every ensemble member in that number has five costume changes.

“That number alone I think I am wearing four pairs of pants all underneath each other that are all quick rigged,” he said. “They switch out my shirts and vest and coats and my hats and my turbans. It is busy. To say I am just in the ensemble isn’t even a thing because the ensemble is such a huge part of the show that we are doing just as much as everyone else is doing in the entire show.”

Gutierrez said his family has been very supportive of his work. He was excited to initially let each of them know he had been cast on Broadway. For someone who had majored in musical theater in college, Broadway is the pinnacle, he said.

“For me, it is a milestone. It is not even the end goal. As actors, your goal is always longevity. You always want to be doing something and putting your hands in different material and different things in commercials or TV shows or musicals on Broadway or national tours or traveling in something.

“The amazing thing is performance can take you many places, and it isn’t linear. It is not like a conventional path. It is very unique to you and unique to what you have to offer the world and the entertainment industry.”

Gutierrez has been involved in music and theater since he was young. He spent three years after college playing Aladdin in a slightly different version of the musical on Disney cruise ships.

He also recently performed in an episode of “A Crime to Remember,” which aired on the Investigation Discovery channel in March. However, he said being cast on Broadway has been the realization of a lifelong dream.

Gutierrez had auditioned for a different part in Aladdin two years ago and did not get the part. He decided to give it another shot.

He went to a large union audition in March, not knowing in what he might be cast. “Aladdin” has several companies touring right now, and Gutierrez initially had a callback for the national tour. He had to go through a series of callbacks, including a recorded audition for Tony-award-winning director Casey Nicholaw, who recently appeared on the Tony’s for his work on “Mean Girls.”

On a Friday, Gutierrez’s agent received word the “Aladdin’s” company had openings and Jacob was in the mix for a part.

“That was torture,” he said. “It was the weekend and everything shut down on Saturday and Sunday. I was out of town. Life goes on. You have to keep going, but I couldn’t help to keep thinking about it. When casting says, ‘Could he be available in a week if we need him?’ your mind starts going down the path— ‘I wonder what it is?’ ‘I wonder what they are looking at?'”

His agent did not call until Tuesday.

“She said I have some good and bad news. I said, ‘OK, what is the bad news?’ She said the bad news is that you didn’t get the ‘Aladdin’ tour. I said, ‘OK, that’s fine.’ I had been in for so many things over those few weeks it could have been anything that the good news was. I didn’t know what she was going to say. She said the good news is you are making your Broadway debut in the same show.”

Gutierrez was home and started screaming. His roommate thought something was wrong and ran out of his room to ask him if he was OK.

When it rains, it pours, Gutierrez said. In the next 24 hours, he booked two more out-of-town shows he had to turn down to take the “Aladdin” part.

“You can go through seasons of dry spells where you audition a lot and are getting close to a lot of things, but the timing or the stars don’t align in that way. You can go months without doing something. When you do get calls that you have an offer, it is so exciting no matter what it is. The fact that I had three in the matter of a day, it was just crazy. It was also a testament to hard work paying off.”

Once he was cast, he had about two and a half weeks to rehearse and learn the complex choreography before he made his debut. He had one dress rehearsal or “put in” with the entire cast before he went on.

He was supposed to debut the night after his dress rehearsal. After rehearsal, he ran down the street to grab a double order of Chinese food. He received a call from the stage manager that the show had cast members out and he was needed that night. He rushed back to the theater to prepare and called his family, who was supposed to see him the next night.

They were able to find tickets and saw his Broadway debut from the fifth and sixth row of the theater.

“It is fast and furious and you really have to be on your game, because there are so many moving parts, ” he said.

Gutierrez credited his early musical education at Hays High School for setting him on a path toward performance.

Gutierrez played saxophone and piano. When he was entering his freshman year, he was going to drop band so he could pursue sports. However, the band teacher, Craig Manteuffel, called him and encouraged him to stay in band. He did.

“Honestly, I credit so much to that moment,” Gutierrez said, “because had I quit music at that point, it would have never opened the door for the choir I joined my sophomore year and moving forward. Looking back to when I was 13 or 14, that was a really pivotal moment in continuing my arts pursuant, because that was what opened up everything else.”

Gutierrez attended Oklahoma City University and moved to New York to pursue is acting dream when he was 22.

Almost all struggling performers have what they call a survival job— a job that supports them but also allows them to audition during the day. Gutierrez said he was very lucky his survival job was working for Mercedes-Benz. He traveled around the country to trade shows teaching people everything there is to know about the vehicles. It was a good job, but it cut into his audition time.

For now Gutierrez is on a rigorous schedule, and he said being on Broadway has been a lifestyle change.

He does eight shows a week plus rehearsals.

“It is really learning to take care of yourself physically,” he said. “When you do repetitive things over and over that are very physically taxing, you have to learn how to take care of your body. For me that’s chiropractic, massage or acupuncture or things that help with soft tissue release or getting physical therapy for little strains that happen here or there. More often than not, it is inevitable, because we are putting our bodies through such extreme circumstances.

“Oftentimes, theater performers or dancers are referred to as professional athletes and that could not be more true. No, I am not on a football field or on a basketball court or playing a sport, but dancing on a steel stage in 12 pounds of costumes eight times a week for three hours a night every night is very much an Olympic sport. It is very grueling on the body if you don’t take care of yourself.”

Gutierrez also said he tries to tend to his mental and spiritual self, and stays centered through his church family in New York.

“It is a whole body, whole world thing,” he said. “You have to be taking care of yourself as a whole person.”

If you are going to be in New York, check out the show’s website here.