O’Roark enjoys walking a tight rope between ‘professionalism’ and ‘perfectionism.’
In his professional theatre debut, Worthington Christian graduate Tucker O’Roark (WC, ’21) didn’t have a single role in the Short North Stage’s production of Come From Away.
He had nine of them. In a short span of the musical, O’Roark went from playing a policeman, an Orthodox rabbi, and an impatient NYC passenger. The musical, which ran January 23-February. 15 at the Garden Theatre, is a true-life account about the diversion of 38 jetliners to Gander, Newfoundland, and Labrador in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
O’Roark is not alone with that kind of load. Come From Away has 12 actors playing over 70 different roles in 100 minutes.
“I haven’t gotten to do a show with this many little parts before,” he said.“It’s been a fun game of switching hats and putting on and taking off glasses really quickly. It keeps you on the tips of your toes, that’s for sure.”
Mastering his character Oz’s Newfoundlander accent, a swirling mixture of Minnesotan, Irish, Scottish, and Canadian inflections, was another challenge.
“I got really good at just copying the guy on the soundtrack for the lines that are on the CD,” said O’Roark, who worked with cast dialect coach Joel Rainwater to master it with the rest of the cast. “As soon as there’s a line I haven’t listened to before, it’s way harder. I have to think through the way I form the words.”
Come From Away has been part history lesson/part master class in acting for O’Roark, who hadn’t been alive during the terrorist attacks.
On the historical side of things, O’Roark has learned a great deal about the emotions of Sept. 11. At least two of the actors in the show lived in New York City on that day. Additionally, Columbus resident Shirley Brooks-Jones, who was one of the passengers who lay over in Gander, spoke to the actors before the play’s opening night.
On the acting side, two actors, Andrew Hendrick (Claude) and Hannah-Kathryn Wall (Hannah), were a part of the Come From Away national tour.
“It’s been an education to be around people who have done it for a while,” he said. “I was very nervous going into it because it’s my first professional show right out of college.
“They’ve helped me figure out the best places to look for auditions, how to make sure I’m well prepared, and even how to figure out contracts. They’ve been affirming I’m in the place where I was meant to be.”
Few of his classmates could imagine O’Roark, the son of long-time Worthington Christian theatre director David O’Roark doing anything else. Tucker was still in diapers when he was cast in his first role as an infant in the musical Working.
O’Roark played soccer growing up, but after his sophomore year, he gave up soccer to focus on acting. “I realized I’m not very good at soccer,” he said with a chuckle. “I didn’t want to do something that I wasn’t great at and miss out on one of the shows the school was doing.”
Throughout high school, he envisioned attending college and pursuing a degree in musical theater.
Until his senior year.
“About halfway through senior year, I was like, man, I don’t know if that’s what I want to do,” he said. “I was torn about what life after high school and after college would lbe ike. I thought acting sounded great, but I needed a fallback plan.”
At Indiana Wesleyan University, O’Roark’s pursuit of a degree was anything but a straight line. He started out in theater education, switched to youth ministry, then to Christian education, and finally to elementary education before graduating with a general studies degree.
However, during that time of searching, O’Roark never stopped acting, appearing in at least one show each year at IWU.
“At the end of my time at Indiana Wesleyan, I said to myself, ‘I can’t see doing any of these other things for the rest of my life. I may as well try acting,” O’Roark said.
The actor’s first exposure to working in a professional company was an eye-opener.
“In high school, a lot of times people did theater because they had friends who were doing it and it sounded like fun,” O’Roark said. “The actors at the college level realize they really enjoy doing this, and they are willing to put in the extra work to make the shows great.
“(At the Short North Stage), the skill level jumped up even further. There were actors in Come From Away who had done national tours, performed in New York City, and all over the country. Everyone was on their A game all the time. It was daunting, but it was also so much fun.”
Director Dionysia Williams Velazco was unfamiliar with the actor before Come From Away, but she said he fit right in.
“We are so thrilled to make this new connection with talent in Columbus,” Come From Away director Dionysia Williams Velazco said. “Tucker is a joy to work with because he is prepared, focused, and cares about the work.”
The same attributes that make O’Roark a solid actor often worked against him when he was growing up. While he loved acting at Worthington Christian, he said he put enormous pressure on himself to be flawless.
“I probably took my high school shows way too seriously,” the actor said. “I never wanted to have people say, ‘You’re always the lead because your dad’s the director.’ From my freshman year of high school until today, I always have to be dialed in, nailing it so well no one questions why I’m here.”
O’Roark still walks that tight rope between “professionalism” and “perfectionism.” Messing up a line in practice, even if it didn’t have any bearing on the show, topples him off the high wire. After a botched line, he’d retreat to the dark parts of the stage and “brood off in the corner.”
“I’d be like, ‘No one talks to me. I need to think about the mistakes I’ve made,” he admitted with a laugh. “It still puts me in such a funk.”
Now, as a professional actor, O’Roark has been working on more positive ways to deal with his errors.
“I’m attempting to improve. Last night I made a mistake, but I was able to get myself out of that funk a little more quickly than I have in the past.
“That’s where grace comes in, I guess. I know I need to talk through things and find a solution, rather than sit and sulk in a corner somewhere.”