Dancing Through Life: A Broadway Summer For Lacrosse Alum Sam Gravitte

TigerBlog on Sam Gravitte's Broadway debut

It's a little after one on a hot New York City summer Saturday. Sam Gravitte is walking west on 51^st Street.

In a few minutes he won't be Sam anymore.

Instead he'll be Fiyero. Not one but two witches will be in love with him.

For now, though, he's Sam, the same Sam Gravitte who a little more than two years ago was finishing his lacrosse career at Princeton, the same Sam Gravitte who smiles easily and laughs softly and without effort draws people to him, the same Sam Gravitte who said this while a Princeton senior: "Since my first musical in fifth grade, there hasn't been a single fleeting thought about doing anything else."

That's the Sam who stopped as he strolled past the entrance of the Gershwin Theater – even as the line to see him perform was forming - to say hello to a few old friends. He did what Sam does, which is to say that he was the same happy, smiling, laughing, easy-going Sam as always, before disappearing into the stage door.

Then he transformed into Fiyero. He sang. He danced. He chose one witch over the other. In the end, all of those people who were on the line and didn't know who Sam was gave Fiyero a thunderous ovation.

The intersection between the real-life Sam and the fictional Fiyero can be found in the first song the character sings in Act I of "Wicked," the long-running musical in which Gravitte is currently appearing, mostly in the ensemble but also as the understudy to Fiyero, the male lead, a role he's gotten to play a handful of times on the Gershwin stage.

That song is entitled "Dancing Through Life."

It's what Fiyero is doing. And it's what Sam is doing, literally and figuratively. They both appear to do it naturally, with ease, and with great appreciation for the opportunity they have to do it.

Sam Gravitte, age 24, has arrived on Broadway.

"I always hoped it would happen this fast," he says. "I'm very grateful and lucky that it did."

If he was a little more excited than normal for that Saturday performance, it's because of how many people he had in the audience to see him, many of whom had a connection to Princeton lacrosse, men's and women's. There are former teammates, including current Tigers Arman Medghalchi, Jon Levine and Zach Struckman, as well as former women's player Erin McNulty and current women's player Annie Price.

Gravitte made his Broadway debut on June 25. Since then, having Princeton lacrosse represented in the audience has been the norm.

"The number of lacrosse guys who have come through to see me is so special to me," he says. "There have been a ton of them. Older ones. Younger ones. They're like an extension of my family.

Princeton head men's lacrosse coach Matt Madalon has seen the show as well.

"I can't tell you how proud all of Princeton lacrosse is of Sam," Madalon says. "He's an extraordinary young man, and he has been since the first day I met him. He was a great lacrosse player for our program and also a great teammate. He's obviously extraordinarily talented. Watching him on that stage, he was mesmerizing."

Gravitte spent a year in the national touring company of "Wicked," opening in Nashville and weaving around the country. He jokes that he did his undergrad at Princeton and then gots his MFA in "Wicked."

He came back to New York and was almost immediately cast into the Broadway production.

"After I came back to the city, my first audition was for "Wicked" of all things," he says. "My agents told me that the creative team just wanted to see how the year on the road had treated me, and 10 days later they offered me a role in the Broadway company, in the ensemble and understudying Fiyero."

Gravitte comes from a theater family, that's for sure. His mother Debbie won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for "Jerome Robbins' Broadway," and his father Beau has been an actor, producer and educator.

It was his mother who had this to say about him when Sam was still in college: "He just had that thing. It can't be named. It's just 'the thing.' Either you have the
thing or you don't have the thing. He can stand on a stage, and he just has that thing."

That is undeniable.

Gravitte is one of the more versatile defensemen Princeton lacrosse has had in the last several decades and one of only three players this century who started on close defense, played longstick midfield and played shortstick midfield. An extraordinary athlete with tremendous fitness, he finished his career with three goals and an assist, as well as 28 caused turnovers and 100 ground balls.

Beyond that, he balanced his two passions – theater and sports – while an undergraduate. As a senior he appeared in "Once" at the Berlind Theater at McCarter, and going back two years before that, he had a major turning point in his time at Princeton, and his life in general, when he auditioned for a role in "Spring Awakening" at McCarter, one that led to having him play lacrosse at Johns Hopkins during the day – a 16-15 Princeton win in overtime, in a game in which he had four ground balls - and then hustle back for the show in Princeton at night.

"Several months before, when I auditioned for the show, I knew about the lacrosse schedule," he says. "I knew it was it was a big game for us. I wanted to play my best lacrosse, and I didn't want my teammates to think it wasn't a priority for me. Coach [Dylan] Sheridan [Princeton's then-defensive coordinator] was so supportive right off the bat. He never questioned it. He said 'I know you're going to play your best lacrosse when you're happy and I know this makes you happy. Go and do your thing. Show up. Play a great game.' It meant so much to me, to have that support playing Division I lacrosse and be a part of this thing I loved and wanted to do for the rest of my life, to have a coach who understood that and supported that. I don't think that's a reaction that all coaches across Division I would have shared. From that moment I thought I could dive into both of these big pieces of my college experience. I still tie a lot back to that moment."

With his joint background in athletics (he was a record-setting running back in high school) and theater, the question is whether or not there's a connection between the two.

"There are definitely similarities," he says. "The main difference is that when you do a show, you're doing a thing you've already done before many times. You hope to recreate an energy and certain kind of focus, but you know how it's going to end. When you play a game, you have no idea what the outcome will be. There's a game plan, but what happens happens."

And the preparations?

"It's all about ritual, right?," he says. "People do different things to get in the mindset. We warm up. We warm down. There's just no team meal before we go out on the stage."

Do they watch video?

"No," he laughs. "You never want to watch a video of yourself performing."

Are there other former college athletes on Broadway?

"I haven't met any yet," he says. "I'm sure the community is out there. I know a number who played sports in high school, even a few lacrosse players. They're always intrigued when they hear about my background. It's one of my backpocket fun facts."

And of course, does he get nervous?

"I get excited," he says.

And now he's reached the top of the profession.

"My first show on Broadway wasn't stressful," he says. "I was lucky to come into a production where I knew the show so well. It was funny. The whole day it felt like the hours were dragging along. Then when I was in the theater, I blinked and the show happened."

"Wicked" tells the story of the witches from the Wizard of Oz, only from a slightly different perspective. It has played at the Gershwin Theater since 2003, not to mention all over the world.

"One of my favorite parts of playing Fiyero is when I get to sing 'As Long As You're Mine,' with Elphaba." he says. "It's a beautiful duet and I get to sing it with some of the most amazing female singers in theatre. When I'm in the ensemble, my favorite moment is the opening. It's the part with the most bodies on the stage, the most sound, the most energy. It's intoxicating to be part of that. To be a part of one of the most famous Broadway opening numbers that exists."

After that Saturday performance, Fiyero came out of a stairwell into one of the theater lobbies and transformed back into Sam, who was met by a large cross-section of his life, friends and family members who had come to see him. He hugged them all, posing for pictures with most.

He had another performance that night, another turn as Fiyero. For the time in between he was Sam, the 24-year-old New Yorker starting out on the path of a career he's always wanted.

"It's all happening," he says. "As quickly as I could have dreamed. I'm so thankful. I can't wait for more."

Dancing through life can be that way. Doing it on the Broadway stage makes it even more so.

- by Jerry Price

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