Twelve years ago, Ginna Claire Mason ’13 saw the Broadway musical “Wicked” with the original cast and immediately fell in love. Today, she takes the same stage performing the standby role of Glinda — her dream role.
“My dad took me to see the show on a business trip, and I was like ‘Dad, that’s what I want to do,’” Mason said. “It’s been my dream role since I was young, and seeing that show really pushed me into musical theater.”
Mason got married four weeks after graduating, moved to upstate New York and has been working nonstop with auditions and shows. She performed in the national tours of “Flashdance” and “Newsies” and in “Duck Commander Musical” in
Las Vegas.
Making her Broadway debut
After auditioning for ‘Wicked,’ Mason had a series of callbacks — one of which consisted of an a cappella work session over Skype while she was visiting her family in Nashville — before booking the role. She experienced quite a bit of nerves throughout the process.
“I think with any audition there should always be a healthy amount of nerves because that means you care about it, and for me I really cared about ‘Wicked’ because it was my dream role,” Mason said. “There was definitely a significant amount of nerves, but you push through that and use it to fuel your performance.”
Since booking the role two months ago, Mason had two weeks of rehearsals and has been on stage five times as a standby role. Mason does not perform every night but is “on call” backstage, and is the first person to go on if Glinda can’t perform or something goes wrong.
Mason still finds playing her dream role surreal.
“I remember my first performance coming down in the bubble, which is how Glinda makes her entrance, and I still couldn’t believe I was doing it,” Mason said. “When I did it I thought it would sink in, but honestly it hasn’t yet. It’s such a whirlwind.”
Since Mason is often “on call” watching backstage, she needed to get creative on developing and preparing to play her character. Without being on stage every night, it is harder for Mason to make the same discoveries from audience reactions. Instead Mason develops her character by watching someone else do it on stage, practicing on her own or rehearsing with the Elphaba standby.
“The girl who’s playing Glinda, Kara Lindsey, is such a phenomenal actor, performer, woman and comedian that I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to watch her every night,” Mason said.
Mason believes that as a standby she can’t do a completely different version of Glinda and needs to execute the role in a similar way so she doesn’t throw everyone else off on stage. But, she does still put her own twist on the role.
After landing the role, Mason immediately moved to the city and loves being able to establish a life outside the show compared to moving frequently with national tours.
“Touring productions are great for the entire country to see Broadway quality productions but I think there’s something special about being on Broadway,” Mason said. “It just feels like it’s the top, the ultimate.”
Mason is in love with New York and all it has to offer. She also loves the Elon community there and the ability to see her former classmates perform.
Preparing for the stage
Through auditioning Mason has learned to overcome rejection by understanding that even though an audition is going well, there are still a lot of talented people in New York going for the same role.
Often times, she said, actors don’t necessarily fit the role — they could be too short, too tall, too fat or too skinny — so there are many factors out of their control.
“It’s important to remain sane,” Mason said. “You prepare your best and go into the room, leave everything on the table and then get ready for the next audition because if you obsess over every audition you would drive yourself nuts.”
She does this by preparing for the next audition on her bus ride home to upstate New York and keeping an audition journal filled with feedback from various auditions.
Mason accounts part of her success to Elon’s musical theater program, which gave her the opportunity to find an agent and perform in shows like “Crazy for You,” “Hair” and “110 in the Shade.”
She also believes Elon allowed her to develop herself as an actress by becoming involved outside the musical theater program.
“I think Elon’s program is so strong,” Mason said. “I love that Elon is a liberal arts school with conservatory-style training. I think it’s great that you’re studying math and science and psychology right alongside singing, dancing and acting because I think well-rounded people make well-rounded performers.”
By taking classes outside of the musical theater program, Mason believes students are more prepared to play roles like a doctor or psychologist because often times they will not be playing the role of an actor.
While at Elon, Mason was taught by Catherine McNeela, professor of performing arts who at the time was head of the musical theater department. She felt that McNeela helped her grow as a performer.
“The very first day I taught her voice she announced to me that her goal was to be Glinda on ‘Wicked on Broadway,’” McNeela said. “I said, ‘Oh my God, dream big. Let’s get to work.’ She’s a very hardworking student, really genius in spirit and that combined with hard work got
her far.”
McNeela believes that Mason’s success comes from not only her talent, but mostly from her hard work and generous spirit.
Bringing it full circle
Though Mason has only performed the role a few times, she has received ongoing support from friends, family and fans.
On Dec. 22, Mason’s mom arranged for McNeela and other friends and family to attend one of her shows, filling up the center of the theater sporting pink boas and ties — Mason’s favorite color — as a surprise.
Mason was shocked as she saw a sea of pink support as she entered the stage coming down in the floating bubble.
“I was sitting in the sixth row center,” McNeela said. “It was surreal because her role is huge. She was fabulous. I laughed, I cried. It was incredible.”
Mason has also watched many aspects of her life come full circle as she plays the role that encouraged her to pursue musical theater.
For example, when Mason first met Kennedy Caughell ’12 her freshman year, they sang “Defying Gravity” together in Yeager Recital Hall. Since then it has become their dream to play Glinda and Elphaba together.
Though they are not performing together, Mason was there when Caughell got the call that she was cast as the Elphaba understudy on tour, and the two hope they will perform the song together someday.
They continue to support one another, and Caughell even took an unpaid personal day from the tour to fly to New York and see Mason perform on Broadway.
“It’s been sweet to encourage each other of following our dreams,” Mason said. “It’s pretty cool to make your Broadway debut and getting to play my dream role.”