Arlington Heights native, Tony winner Scott Waara stars in 'Once' tour
Though he was born and raised in Arlington Heights, Tony Award-winning actor Scott Waara has never performed on a professional Chicago stage. That will change when he appears in the return engagement of the 2012 Tony Award-winning musical "Once" at Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre from June 2 to 7.
"I was in New York for 14 years and now L.A. for 20 years, so I'm very excited," said Waara, soon to be 58, at the prospect of finally performing near his hometown. "The last tour that I did was about 30 years ago, and that was 'South Pacific' with Robert Goulet. I actually left that after six months before it got to Chicago."
In "Once," Waara plays Da, the repairman father of a floundering Dublin singer-songwriter simply known as "Guy" (Stuart Ward). Like the 2006 Academy Award-winning film of the same name that inspired the musical, "Once" largely centers on Guy's infatuation with a Czech immigrant known as "Girl" (Dani De Waal) as she creatively encourages him to get over some personal setbacks to record a self-produced album.
"The dynamic between Da and Guy I think is not unlike any father who has a child that he loves, but doesn't quite understand," Waara said. "The scenes are quite spare, but there's a lot going on underneath them because (Da's) wife just died a year before and they're both kind of limping along in this existence. This is all subtext, but the father is probably holding his son back from his musical dreams since the son feels a responsibility for his father."
Waara joined the "Once" tour as a replacement, waiting six months to hear back from the show's producers after his initial audition that he recorded via an iPad. Waara's expertise as a guitarist undoubtedly helped him to get hired, since "Once" utilizes its cast to not only sing and act, but as instrumentalists to function as the show's onstage band - especially during the preshow jam where audience members are invited to imbibe onstage in set designer Bob Crowley's re-creation of an Irish bar.
"We've got a book of about 25 songs, so that was actually the hardest thing learning all of those tunes," said Waara, who alternates playing mandolin and some banjo in "Once." "There's certainly some freedom in it, but there's also a specificity of things that need to happen. The producers are very smart because they gave us (replacements) a very long rehearsal period."
Waara's road back to Chicago has had its share of ups and downs. He credits drama teachers like Lyvonne Trad and Doug Murphy for instilling a love of performing at Arlington High School (coincidentally where Waara's father, Bruno, was a principal from 1962 to 1979). Waara then went to school in Texas at Southern Methodist University before working regularly as a theater actor.
Two major pinnacles in Waara's theater career stretch to the late 1980s and early 1990s. He originated the role of jazz band singer Jimmy Powers in the Tony Award-winning musical "City of Angels" (soon to be revived by the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire). He went on to win a Tony Award for playing the Texas ranch hand Herman in the acclaimed 1992 Broadway revival of Frank Loesser's 1956 musical "The Most Happy Fella."
Waara's subsequent career move to Los Angeles wasn't quite as illustrious, with a supporting role in the little-known 1994 sitcom "Muddling Through" and other TV work as his main credits. In fact, he left acting for a while to use his skills as a musician for a product development job with a guitar amplifier company.
Waara eventually returned to performing around 2013, and he's relishing his chance to utilize so many of his talents in "Once" - and to play music that ties into his Celtic roots on his mother's side of the family.
"It's been good. When I was much younger and more ambitious and kind of wanting to climb, I was a little frustrated by it," said Waara about touring. "Now I'm appreciative of it."
“Once”
Location: Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph St., Chicago, (800) 775-2000 or
Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, June 2-6, and 2 p.m. Wednesday, June 3, and Saturday and Sunday, June 6-7
Tickets: $27-$92