Behind the Scenes of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Broadway Tour

What's up, guys? Young Hollywood about to take you inside a world of pure imagination. Mr. Noah Weisberg, the Willy Wonka. Yes. In the national tour of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Can the role get any bigger for you?

No, this is a huge excitement and in the beginning, I was like, don't mess it up because I love the movie so much and I love Gene Wilder so much, but we have the best director, this guy Jack O'Brien, who's won three Tony Awards. Three Tony Awards. Yes. I don't even know three guys named Tony and he's won three Tony Awards. And so he made sure that this was going to be our own version and we weren't trying to copy the movie, but we were still giving everything that we love from the movie and doing our own version of it at the same time. There's a great power that comes with putting on this coat. It's a responsibility.

Eating as much chocolate that's put in front of your face?

Yes. It's big.

Look at that. Look at that. That's actually a good look on you.

Thanks.

Feel like you could hit the club with that.

Here's the cool thing about our show. So you get all the things that you like love and remember from the movie, like, I've got a golden ticket and pure imagination, the Oompa Loompa song, Candyman. But you also get a full score of new songs written for our show by the guys who wrote Hairspray.

Anything you took from Gene Wilder that you bring to your role here?

There's one little thing I do, just like a little nod to him. I kind of like lean sometimes on my little desk like this.

Oh yeah. What I love to always find out how you got this role. I want to hear about the auditions, the 10 callbacks and the tears, yeah, all that.

Yeah. So originally, I sent in a tape from LA for the workshop before it went to Broadway a couple years ago to play Mr. Salt. Uh, Veruca's dad. Yeah. That didn't happen. And now it's about to go out on the tour and they say, will you come in one more time for the role, not to understudy, but to play the role on the tour. Just come right to final callbacks and I did and, you know, as an actor normally, you sort of hold the material to show that it's still an audition. Correct. Even though you're memorized and I just came in and I was like, I'd worked so hard on it, so I just put it down on the piano. I was like, all right, what scene are we doing first? Soon after that, I found out I got it and started memorizing hundreds of lines and started rehearsals.

You got the role, but it's my turn to do the role. I'm missing something.

You're missing the most power of all, which is this hat. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. So please, put on the hat.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Yes. Yes. It fits you perfectly and there's one more thing you're missing. If I can say, like, it's great to be here in the dressing room. Yeah. All the magic really happens on stage.

To the magic we go. Let's do it. Every single costume is handmade. We've got Grandpa Joe's costume and the detail work is so amazing. This is Charlie's mom, Mrs. Bucket.

Wait, I'd wear that out. That's pretty cool.

You know, and you can.

Thanks. We'll steal it. Go get it. That's a lot. That's a lot.

And I love this one. This is Mrs. TV. I played Grandpa Joe when I was 12 in a region in a little children's show. Uh, version of this, so I think the costumes were slightly different than this. We were witnessing the lights happening for this show. It's like a disco club thing happening all at once. Yeah, so the amount of technology that we have and the set is incredible. Most of the time on national tours, they scale down the set from Broadway. This is the only one really I've ever heard of where they up the set. They made it more beautiful, more spectacular, and yet able to fit into about seven or eight trucks and travel all over the country. We have an amazing crew.

So break that down. The trucks go from obviously city to city. What time do you get here? What time does that start on stage?

Our crew works so hard. Uh, so we'll finish a show, uh, a run like on a Sunday night. We'll go home and order pizza and relax and travel on Monday, you know, via plane. They will strike the whole set, put it into our trucks, drive overnight, start setting it on Sunday night, start setting it up on Monday and Tuesday. We do a sound check on Tuesday and open in the next town. So they don't have a break.

Wow.

Yeah. They're really, really incredible.

Wow. Well, I see some incredible stuff over there.

Yeah. Can I show you this?

Twist my arm.

Okay, good. Willy Wonka has sort of locked himself in his factory. This is a bit that's really from the book. Um, from the original book. And uh,

Kids, it was a book. It was a book. It was a book. People used to read.

Willy Wonka comes out to do like a little reconnaissance to see what do people, do they remember him? What do they think about chocolate? And in our version, unlike the movie, he's the candy seller in disguise. The Candyman can. Yes, the Candyman, if you will.

The Candyman.

The Candyman. Um, and so he's the local candy store and that's where he meets Charlie. Every prop, every little detail. Open it. It's so incredible.

Open it. I can't. Where's my candy?

Check in your pocket right now. In that pocket.

Really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, look. Yeah. We have lots of real chocolate and get to eat real chocolate during the show. We get to play historic houses like this. The ceiling is gorgeous. It's over 2,400 seats and thankfully, we're really packed. There's still some seats available, but we're it's really nice to play to a packed house. And you're doing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It doesn't get more fun and visual and just energetic than that. And also heartfelt and like a really, really important message. Even though it's a silly fun show, the message is, we think about little Charlie, that like kindness and selflessness and true and being truthful is what wins the day.

Can I be truthful with you? Yeah. I want my hat back. Yep. No, that's I was greedy to have taken it. There's one more thing I want. It should be in here. It's not. This is silver. Willy Wonka is standing next to me and I got a golden ticket. Nailed it. I got a golden ticket.