NEW YORK — When the happy-footed Jared Grimes shuffles his way onstage in the hot-selling revival of “Funny Girl” on Broadway, he taps into his own unique history.
More than two decades before Grimes was charming audiences at the August Wilson Theatre, offering stage-rattling visuals to accompany Lea Michele’s stunning soprano vocals, Grimes was tap dancing beside a money hat for commuters beneath the city.
His personal experiences, he said, have come closer and closer to the forefront as “Funny Girl” enters its ninth month, transformed by a summer casting switch up that put Michele in the lead role after Beanie Feldstein left.
Michele, a dynamo who draws long standing ovations for her turn as Fanny Brice, has revived a production that was beset by brutal reviews before Feldstein’s exit. The theater has been near or beyond capacity since Michele arrived Sept. 6.
The show — which is choreographed by Ellenore Scott and Ayodele Casel — can resemble a concert as much as a period piece musical set a century ago.
Grimes is letting his feet go in new directions, inspired a little less by John W. Bubbles and Fred Astaire, and perhaps a bit more by his experiences firing up crowds by the 42nd Street subway station stairs.
“Having more theatrical crowds gives way to, I guess you could say, more theatrical ideas,” said Grimes, who plays the character Eddie Ryan. “Now, with the younger audiences, the more contemporary-feeling audiences out there in today’s shows, there’s a little bit more room for nuance.”
“I can twinkle a teeny bit of 2022 into the early 1900s,” Grimes added. “I can kind of explore and navigate my perspective.”
Grimes, 39, was born in Jamaica, Queens, but relocated to North Carolina at age 6, only to return to the city in his teens to pursue performing arts. ”I’m a country mouse and a city mouse at the same time,” he said.
In high school, he would travel up to the city to perform with William B. Johnson, a bucket drummer who became one of his mentors.
“Everything that I knew how to do with my drumsticks, I made sure he knew how to do with his feet,” said Johnson, who described the young Grimes as reserved but fiercely focused on his craft.
At the turn of the 21st century, the city’s streets and transit system became Grimes’ training ground. He would sometimes spend full days trying to grab commuters’ attention without irking cops.
His favorite spot to dance was outside Times Square’s since-closed ESPN Zone, he said. At times, he and Johnson could freeze crowds that would swell toward 200, and could net nearly $1,000 in a day, Grimes remembered.
Grimes’ busking days came to a halt by his junior year at Marymount Manhattan College, he said, as he began to perform professionally and the NYPD cracked down on permit-free street performances.
But the period left its mark.
“We were evolving in the craft,” said Grimes, who is also appearing in the current season of “Manifest” on Netflix. “I credit performing in the subways for being able to dance like I’m in a marathon.”
It took about a decade for Grimes to dance his way from the subway to the Broadway stage. In 2013, he made his debut in “After Midnight,” and in 2020, he appeared in “A Soldier’s Play.”
But his central role in “Funny Girl,” which has earned him glowing reviews and a Tony nomination, is by far his biggest Broadway turn yet.
He said he still tinkers nightly with his dazzling, feet-twisting display. And every day, he said, he draws on his days dancing in the heart of Manhattan.
“Outside of ESPN Zone, I’m me, 110,000% and then some. And for ‘Funny Girl,’ I’m Eddie Ryan via me,” he said. “It’s different stages. But the connection is the same at the end of the day. Just on a different platform.”
———
