Chicago-bound 'Curious Incident' star steps into mentor's role
The Chicago-bound tour of the hit play “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” is led by a young actor with a special tie to the guy who won a Tony Award in the show.
Adam Langdon is a 2015 graduate of The Juilliard School of Drama, where he was mentored by Alex Sharp, who went on to beat Bradley Cooper and Bill Nighy for a Tony when he played the hero in “Curious,” a quirky, 15-year-old boy with an exceptional brain.
The play, based on an adaptation of Mark Haddon's best-selling novel, is a swirling, kaleidoscopic story about Christopher Boone, an English teen with Asperger's syndrome who tries to find a dog's killer. The show starts its Chicago run Tuesday, Dec. 6, at the Oriental Theatre.
Sharp was a year ahead of Langdon at school and the older actor looked out for the younger one. When Langdon went to see his former mentor make his Broadway debut in “Curious,” he was impressed but daunted.
“It just blew my mind, the show, and I never thought I could do something like that,” said Langdon, 23, who grew up outside Burlington, Vermont. “He came up to me after the show and he was like, 'This is a part you'll do.' And I was like, 'I think not.' There are wall flips and things and I'm just this skinny guy.”
Now, a few years later, Langdon has nabbed the role in the touring version, which will play in more than 30 cities. (Benjamin Wheelwright will play Christopher for certain shows.)
The play won five Tony Awards - including best play - and was adapted by playwright Simon Stephens and directed by Marianne Elliott, who also co-directed the Tony Award-winning “War Horse.”
“The same thing happens with this play, again and again, wherever we play it: People fall in love with this boy and they fall in love with his mind,” Stephens said. “They care for him and they recognize themselves in him. I think we'll find the same openness wherever we go and that will be immensely moving.”
Like “War Horse,” the play combines graceful movements - it was the rare Broadway play nominated for best choreography - with projections and music to create a stylized ballet. (Some have called it Hamlet mixed with Cirque du Soleil.) Elliott won the best director Tony for her work.
“She's really raised the level of what a nonmusical can be with still having the people being the heart of the story despite the big theatrical elements,” said Maria Elena Ramirez, the Salt Lake City-raised actress who will be playing Christopher's kindly teacher.
Ramirez has been working on her British accent, but that comes easily to Langdon, whose mother is British and who studied in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
“I'm ready. I was raised on a diet of British comedies and pickled onions,” he said, laughing.
“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”
Location: Oriental Theatre, 24 W. Randolph St., Chicago, (800) 775-2000 or
Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday (also Dec. 11 and 19), 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday (no evening show Dec. 24), 2 p.m. Sunday (also Dec. 14, 21 and 22); from Dec. 6-24
Tickets: $22-$95